Roar Issue 0

8/19/2019 Roar Issue 0

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David Harvey Marina Sitrin Michael Hardt

John Holloway Janet Biehl and many more

Issue #0 - Winter 2015BUILDING POWER


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Building Power

0

Issue #0

We lived amidst the ruins.Until we picked up the stones,

and we began to build.


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FOUNDER AND EDITOR

ART DIRECTOR

Bojan Kanižaj

SPECIAL THANKS TO

Myrssini Antoniou

Jerome Roos

EDITORIAL COLLECTIVE

Joris Leverink

Jelle Bruinsma Carlos Delclós

Leonidas Oikonomakis

EDITORIAL ASSISTANT

Tamara van der Putten

MADE POSSIBLE BY

Foundation forDemocracy and Media

and 200+ individual funders

ILLUSTRATOR

Mirko Rastić

All around us lie the ruins—remnants of an old left anda bygone era of revolutionary aspirations. Some of thedecaying structures remain, to be sure, but everywhere

the wreckage of the labor movement is now apparent: its tradi-tional organizations lie in shambles, the smoldering debris strewnacross the depoliticized landscape of our “post-ideological” soci-eties, while its emancipatory ideals have long since given way tocapitalist monstrosities—totalitarian and technocratic alike—thatmake a mockery of the movement’s origins in the great workers’struggles of the 19th century.

Seemingly devoid of people or power, the ruins have be-come a testament to a world-historic and largely self-in-flicted defeat. Capital now rules these lands, and, like it ornot, it is the desolation and debris we have inherited as ourown. Amidst this rubble we must now discover the build-ing blocks for a different kind of left and a new anti-capitalistpolitics, both to counter the relentless assault on our commonfuture and to construct other possible worlds in the process.

Thankfully, events of recent years appear to hail a reawakening ofrevolutionary aspirations across the globe, accompanied by the re-surgence of specters old and new. Powerful forces are stirring belowthe surface, lurking in the shadows, waiting for the right momentto strike and shake the world of capital to its very foundations. Itis upon us to ensure that, by the time the next wave comes around,we are adequately prepared to rise to the challenge of our times.

EDITORIAL

Building Blocks


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ROAR COLLECTIVE

ROAR was founded in 2010-‘11 with this sole purpose inmind: to reflect on the tide of popular revolt as it ebbedand flowed from Tahrir to Rojava and beyond. Now, as ourmovements mature and we look to new horizons, ROARis about to embark on an exciting new adventure itself.

This free (digital-only) inaugural issue marks the launchof our new website and of ROAR’s transformation into aquarterly journal of the radical imagination. Packed withvisionary perspectives from leading thinkers and influ-ential activists alike, we believe the struggles and ideas re-

counted within these pages constitute some tentative theo-retical and practical building blocks for the construction of aradically democratic anti-capitalist politics for the 21st century.

In the spring, we will be releasing our first proper print is-sue— Revive la Commune! —to follow up on some of the themesdiscussed here. We warmly invite you to support this impor-tant activist publishing project by subscribing to the magazine:

We are acutely aware that the construction of a new world isfar more than an academic exercise. We do not harbor any il-lusions about the “Eternal Truths” of radical theory and wecertainly do not aim to write any blueprints for a post-capi-talist future. We simply write to learn from each other’s strug-

gles, to share our common dreams and aspirations, and to am-plify our collective powers—so that one day we may be ableto recount the story of our struggle to future generations:

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Yes, we lived amidst the ruins.Until we picked up the stones,

and we began to build.


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ContentsIssue #0

JOHN HOLLOWAY

WANT TO CONTRIBUTE TO ROAR?

VISIT ROARMAG.ORG/CONTRIBUTE FOR DETAILS

No, No, No10

THEODOROS KARYOTIS

Chronicles of a DefeatForetold

32

JANET BIEHL

Bookchin’s RevolutionaryProgram

62

JEROME ROOS

Towards A NewAnti-Capitalist Politics

78

LEONIDAS OIKONOMAKIS

Why We Still Love theZapatistas

114

MANUELA ZECHNER & BUE RÜBNERHANSEN

Building Power in a Crisis ofSocial Reproduction

132

MARINA SITRIN

Recuperating Work

and Life

152

ERIK FORMAN

Theses on a UnionismBeyond Capitalism

178

DEBT COLLECTIVE

The Potential of Debtors’Unions

192

CARLOS DELCLÓS

Rebel Cities and theRevanchist Elite

210

OSCAR OLIVERA

After the Water War238

AMADOR FERNÁNDEZSAVATER

Reopening theRevolutionary Question

252

DAVID HARVEY

Consolidating Power266

MICHAEL HARDT

Spaces for the Left166

OPAL TOMETI

Ending Anti-Black StateViolence

224


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THE RUPTURE

CONFRONTED WITH OUR CONTEMPORARYWEAKNESS, WE NEED TO MUSTER THECOURAGE OF OUR OWN ABSURDITYTHECOURAGE SIMPLY TO SAY “NO” AND TEL LCAPITAL TO GO TO HELL.

John Holloway


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15ROAR MAGAZINE14

I. JULY 5, 2015

The first No is that which still resoundsin the air: the great Oxi of July 5, a nightwhen all the world danced in the s treets.An absurd, ridiculous No, a No of hope,a No of dignity.

Writing in 1795, William Blake imag-ined the reactions of the Kings of Asiato the revolutionary upsurge in Europe.He imagined the Kings calling on theircounsellors:

To cut off the bread from the city, That the remnant may learn to obey, That the pride of the heart may fail,

That the lust of the eyes may be quenched, That the delicate ear in its infancy May be dull’d, and the nostrils clos’d up,

To teach mortal worms the pathThat leads from the gates of the Grave.

The prolonged period of negotiation between the Eurozone governments andSYRIZA was that: not just a negotia-tion but a humiliation, an attempt to killthe pride of the heart, to teach mortal

No. Oxi.Simply that.

No, No, No. Three No’s. Three dates: July 5, 2015; December 6, 2008; Septem- ber 15, 2008. Three ruptures.

Start from there, from the ruptures. Thewalls of the world are closing in uponus and we must fight to keep the win-

dows open, the windows that open outto another world, other worlds, differentrealities: real worlds that exist in our re-fusals, our struggles, our dreams, our ex-periments, our ability and determinationto do things differently.

Worlds in which people are not lockedup in a stadium and repressed by po-lice just because they flee from war, inwhich ports and airports and water arenot handed to the rich so that they can

become richer, worlds in which the fu-ture of humanity is not sacrificed to capi-tal’s insatiable hunger for profit. Sensi-

ble worlds, obvious worlds, worlds not

based on money, worlds that today arerepressed and ridiculed, worlds that existin the mode of being denied.

The worlds we want to create, and arecreating, are worlds-against, worlds thatgo against the horrors of existing society,their grammar is negative. That is whywe must start from No, from No, No, No.

Not an empty optimism, for each ope-ning has been followed by a closing, each

No has been followed by a Yes, but theNo is never completely extinguished,the opening pushes back. Nothingworse than acceptance, nothing worsethan the inane “well, they did their best,didn’t they? What more could they havedone?”, nothing worse than the pathetic“courage of hopelessness” advocated byŽižek in a recent reflection on the Greeksituation.

worms the path that leads from the gates of the grave. The Noof July 5 was a No to the humiliation: a flaring of the nostrils,a sharpening of the ears, an awakening of the lust of the eyes,a cry that shouts to the four winds “with no disrespect for theworms, we are more than that and there is more to life thanthe march to the grave.”

The great No of the referendum did not lead anywhere, per-haps it could not lead anywhere. The governments (includingthe SYRIZA government, joining now with the other eigh-teen) replied just over a week later: “Sorry (very sorry, in thecase of SYRIZA), but we do not understand what you say, youare speaking the wrong language, using the wrong grammar.

What is this word ‘No’? You are speaking Nonsense. You livein a world of make-believe. The Reality of the world is thatthe choice in the referendum was between YES and YES. TheReality is that there is no option other than conforming.”

A No drowned, a hope smothered. And yet it remains ourstarting point, the point from which we try to understand theworld. In that No we recognize ourselves, in that No we lookfor our humanity. That No is our language, our grammar. Thegreat Oxi still resonates in the air, just as a kiss hangs in theair after the lovers have gone home. It resonates profoundly,filled with the echo of that earlier No, that earlier nonsense,the great rupture of almost seven years ago: December 2008.

The No of the Greek referendum remains our starting

point, the point from which we try to understand the

world.


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ROAR MAGAZINE16 No, No, No 17o, No, No

There were no demands made of the state, just a roar of fury against the state and allit stood for. Rage was interlaced with hope,

but the relation was fragile and there was noinstitutional mediation. It was certainly nota hope that change would come throughthe next election, but there was an underly-ing hope that the world could be different,that it might be possible to bring down theworld of capital and repression and injus-tice.

There was a hope, but a desperate hope,a hope tinged with despair. One of themany manifestos circulating in the streetsof Athens in those days gives an feeling forthe movement:

The revolt was, in fact, a revolt against proper-

ty and alienation. Whoever did not hide behind

the curtains of their privacy, whoever found

themselves in the streets, knows this very well:

shops were looted not to re-se ll the computers, theclothes, the furniture but for the enjoyment of the

catastrophe of that which alienates us—the phan-

tasmagoria of the commodity. […]

The pyres that heated the bodies of the insurgents

in the long nights of December were full of pro-

ducts of our labor liberated, disarmed symbols of

a once powerful imaginary. We simply took that

which belongs to us and threw it on the fires toge-

ther with all that it signifies. The great potlatch of

the previous days was a rebellion of desire against

the imposed canon of scarcity.

This revolt was, in fact, a rebellion against prop-

erty and alienation. A revolt of the gift against the

sovereignty of money. An insurrection of anarchy,

of use value against the democracy of exchange

value. A spontaneous rising of collective freedom

against the rationality of individual discipline.

(Flesh Machine/Ego Te Provoco)

II. DECEMBER 6, 2008

The shooting of the 15-year-old Alexis Gri-goropoulos on December 6, 2008 provokedone of the loudest screams of No that has

been heard in this century: No to policeviolence, No to discrimination against theyoung, against migrants, against women,No to a system built on frustration, on frus-trating the lives and the potential especiallyof the young but of all, No to a system thatdulls our senses, closes our nostrils, throughunemployment and, sometimes worse,employment, No to a system built on themeaninglessness of money. No too to thestale traditions of working class struggle.

The December revolt of 2008 was one

of the loudest screams of No that has

been heard in this century. It was a

roar of fury against the state and all it

stood for.


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ROAR MAGAZINE18 No, No, No 19

This statement is not necessarily “rep-resentative” but it does give a feeling forthe movement of December 2008 andthe years that follow. It is a language thatdoes not fit, a nonsensical language froma world of make-believe, the language ofa world that does not yet exist, that existsnot-yet in our revolts.

Years of marches and protests and riotsfollowed, and violent repression too. Theanger pushed beyond the protests to callsfor a radically different society, rage led

on to the search for other ways of living,through the creation of social centers,community gardens, factory occupa-tions, local assemblies—both as ways oftackling immediate practical problems ofsurvival and creating the basis for a dif-ferent world.

Rage led on to the

search for other ways of

living, through the

creation of

social centers,community gardens,

factory occupations and

local assemblies.

But the protests and the experiments brought their difficulties and frustra-

tions. The hundreds of protests, both by the trad itional and the anti -autho-ritarian left, made no impact at all ongovernment policy, already subject tothe dictates of the Troika of creditors(EU, IMF, ECB). A particularly signifi-cant date was February 12, 2012, whenhundreds of thousands demonstratedin the streets, more than fifty buildingswere burnt down in the center of Ath-ens, police cars were set on fire, teargas was used far beyond the legal limits,the Parliament was surrounded by a

police guard and the deputies voted toapprove another package of austerity.

It was on this ground that the specta cu-lar rise of SYRIZA took place. SYRIZAsucceeded in giving these expressionsof rage-and-hope a focus. “Vote for usand we shall really make things diffe-rent, we shall break with the austeritypolicies imposed by so many govern-ments, we shall stop the repression andthe corruption.” Six years of riotingand creative alternatives had made lit-tle difference: the politicians had votedto accept the austerity measures. Nowit was time to make that hop e effective,to give it a realistic way forward.

The rise of SYRIZA was the result of thefact that the years of anti-state, anti-partymilitancy had not led to any clear re-sults. Of course many of those whovoted for SYRIZA had never ta-kenpart in the movement of 2008 or theriots and experiments of the years thatfollowed; but many of those who hadtaken an active part certainly voted forSYRIZA in January of 2015.

The rise of

SYRIZA was the

result of the fact

that the years of

anti-state,

anti-party militancy

had not led to

any clear results.

SYRIZA inherited

the legacy of

those years of

militancy and

focused it, and in

the process

transformed it.

SYRIZA inherited the legacy of those yearsof militancy and focused it, and in the pro-cess transformed it. It changed the grammarof the protests and brought it back to, or atleast closer to, the grammar of orthodox po-litics. The protests of 2008 and after movedon the edge of impossibility and invention.They were a de-totalizing movement, anangry breaking of the system. The hope wasalways on the edge of hope-less despair, butit was a hope that refused to come to termswith the existing system, a hope that couldonly be an absolute call for a different world

and a rejecting of this one.

The enemy was the world-as-it-is (what wemight call capital, but many did not use thatterm) and there was no demand that couldmeaningfully be made of that world. If wethink of it as a game, it was a game in whichthe rules either did not exist or were beinginvented in the process of playing. Therewas no possible dovetailing with the party-political system.

The rise of SYRIZA gave a definition tohope, but in the process it narrowed itdown. The enemy now was not capital,

but neoliberalism, understood as the domi-nance of a particularly aggressive form ofcapitalist politics. The demand was for theending of austerity. The end of capitalismwas set aside as being entirely unrealistic.As Varoufakis explained in a talk in Za-greb in 2013, the end of capitalism might

be desirable in the long term, but the aimnow must be to fight for changes within thesystem. This was to be a politics of the pos-sible, a realistic politics. Hope was a centralrallying-call, but hope was to be the realisticcall for a change of politics and the endingof austerity.


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P H O T O B Y G

G I A H T T P S : / / C O M M O N S . W I K I M E D I A . O R G / W I K I / U S E R : G G I A C C B Y S A 4 . 0


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An important and inevitable consequenceof focusing dissatisfaction-and-hope onthe state was that it acquired a clear ter-ritorial element, which was not there be-fore, or certainly not to the same extent.The riots and marches of the years after2008 were directed against the Greekgovernment and against the system: al-though the austerity policies were clearlylinked to the pres-sures from the Eu-ropean Union, thestruggle did not

present itself innational terms. Inthe words of thepamphlet quoted,this was a rebel-lion of use valueagainst value, notof Greece againstGermany: the lan-guage of the riotsis an internationallanguage.

Once SYRIZAcame to powerthe conflict cameto be redefinedas one betweenGreece and theother countries ofthe Eurozone. The conflicts move fromthe cities to the state, from the streetsto the closed rooms of inter-state nego-tiation. Greece itself is constituted in thetransition, as a subject, as a concept. Andwith it, “the Greek people,” and indeeddemocracy itself, the rule of the Greekpeople.

This is not necessarily the result of a con-scious decision by any of the actors: it isalready inscribed in the existence of thestate as a territorially defined unit. If wenote that the rise of SYRIZA coincided intime with the rise of Golden Dawn, thisis not to say that SYRIZA was to blame

but simply that both are connected to theredefinition of the conflict in territorial

terms, a shift thatis truly frighteningin its implications.

It is important tounderline the im-portance of thistransition, pre-cisely becausethe implicationsare so enormousand because it issimply taken forgranted and with-out question bythe overwhelmingmajority of discus-sion, on the leftas much as on theright. The move-

ment from seeingthe state as the en-emy to seeing it asa possible site for

change inevitably brings about a redefi-nition of conflict in terms of territorial ornational conflict which can have fatefulconsequences. It is not just that the statedoes not work, that it bureaucratizes anddemobilizes, but that it territorializes,transforms social conflict into nationalconflict.

The overwhelmingly negative grammar of2008 was replaced by a positive, territorialgrammar aimed at concrete change. Obvi-ously both perspectives continued to beintertwined, but it was the realistic-positivedefinition of hope that was louder. Hencethe great shock, the great joy of the refe-rendum of July 5: the No was an echo ofthe language of December 2008. It did notshare the same grammar as the SYRIZAgovernment. It was a return to the nonsen-sical language of world of make-believe.

The result of the referendum did not pointto any particular answer, did not lead any-where definite. Even if many felt that Grex-it, the departure of Greece from the Euro,was desirable, this was for many not reallyan alternative policy proposal (as it was andis in the eyes of some left-wing politicians)

but rather a different way of throwing arock through the window of a bank: an actof revolt.

The Realism of the

SYRIZA government

proved to be completely

unrealistic. SYRIZA

still dreamed of a fairer

capitalism, and fought

for months for a

realistic dream that was

mere phantasy.

The Realism of the SYRIZA governmentproved to be completely unrealistic. Itled the anger-hope of the previous yearson to the path of realism, but it did notgo far enough to meet the real world.SYRIZA still dreamed of a fairer capita-lism, and fought for months for a realisticdream that was mere phantasy.

This ended in the tragic-farcical reversalof the referendum and the total capitula-tion of the hope promised by SYRIZA tothe reality represented by Angela Merkel

and the other politicians of the EuropeanUnion. “Grow up!” they said, “get real!There is no hope, just reality. There is nosuch thing as a fairer capitalism. Keynes isdead, long dead.” SYRIZA pushed to thelimits of state action: they pushed theirphantasy as far as they possibly couldwithin the state-form, and failed.

After months of playing the game of ne-gotiation and just when it looked, afterthe referendum, as if the Greek govern-ment might pull off a victory of somesort, Merkel and the Europeans an-nounced “checkmate!” And the Greekgovernment saw that it was so and fellto its knees. The endgame was lost. Theendgame of what? Of the radical phaseof the SYRIZA government certainly. Ofthe new left parties in Europe (particu-larly Podemos) probably. Of the euro andeven the European Union very possibly.Of humanity, conceivably.

Checkmate. Yes, certainly, but if we re-member, remember December 6, then itis very clear that we’re playing a differentgame. Your Reality has won just now, but

The rise of SYRIZA

gave a definition to

hope, but in the process

it narrowed it down.

The enemy now was

not capital, but

neoliberalism,

understood as the

dominance of a

particularly

aggressive form

of capitalist politics.


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III. SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

A No of a different kind. Perhaps not aNo of rage, simply a “No, it doesn’t work,capitalism doesn’t work.”

A rupture certainly. The collapse of theLehman Brothers bank, the biggest bank-ruptcy in the his-tory of capitalism,on that day broughtpanic to the worldof finance and theworld of politics.Lehman Brothers

was followed thenext day by AIG,the world’s largestinsurance company,and more followed.Tim Geithner, laterUS treasury sec-retary, said “TheUnited States riskeda complete collapseof our financial sys-

tem,” and Canada’s finance ministersaid afterwards that the world econo-my had hovered on the edge of “catas-trophe.”

The collapse was eventually pre-vented by the Great Bailout of banks.Throughout the world there was amassive nationalization not of the

banks themselves, but of the banks’debts. Worldwide, about twenty tril-lion (20,000,000,000,000) dollars weretransferred to the banks in order to

keep them in business: the twenty tril-lion dollars of bank debt assumed bythe states now became twenty trilliondollars of public debt, of sovereigndebt.

Whereas previously it had become clearthat the banks would be unable to paytheir debts (hence the Lehman col-

lapse), it now be-came clear that itwas likely that atleast some stateswould be unableto pay the debtsthey had nowacquired. Themassive amountof debt assumed

by states madeit necessary forthese states todo everythingpossible to paythe creditors(the banks) byadopting poli-cies of austerity,

Greece is not so special.

The measures that the

SYRIZA government

has been forced to

accept are not very

different from the

reforms that are being

implemented in most

parts of the world.

Greece is not so special. The measures that the SYRIZA govern-ment has been forced to accept are not very different from thereforms that are being implemented in most parts of the world:

labor reform (reductions in the rights of workers), reductionof pensions, cuts in the welfare systems, privatization of stateresources previously considered to be of strategic importance,the open subordination of state decisions to the requirements ofthe banks, the hollowing out of democracy, and so on and on.

The Zapatistas have suggested that a terrible storm is blowingagainst the world and that the urgent task of theoretical reflec-tion is to understand this storm and how to combat it. This wasthe theme of the seminar they organized in May 2015. Seen fromthis perspective, Greece is important because it is in the centerof the storm, but what is happening there can be understoodonly if we try to understand the storm as a whole.

To speak of the present turmoil in terms of Greece against Ger-many or the Eurozone actively closes the possibility of under-standing what is happening in terms of a deeper problem in thepresent organization of the world that affects Mexico or PuertoRico or Detroit as well as Greece.

ours is a different reality, a reality thatexists in the mode of being denied. Ourreality is the reality of the world that ex-ists not yet, that exists in our potential,that which exists in-against-and-beyondthe commodity-form, our reality is therebellion of use value against value. (Butcan we eat it?)

To understand what is the “Reality” thatconfronts us and now stands triumphant,let us remember another date, anotherrupture.

that is, by cutting welfare payments and selling off state-ownedassets.

Thus, according to David McNally, writing in 2010, “Inresponse to market reactions to its debt, Latvia has fired onethird of all teachers and slashed pensions by 70 per cent, Irelandhas chopped wages of government employees by 22 percent,the state of California has cut health insurance for nine hundredthousand poor children.”

To speak of the present turmoil in terms of Greece

against Germany actively closes the possibility ofunderstanding what is happening in terms of a deeper

problem in the present organization of the world.


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is the question: “how do we ensure thereproduction of the capitalist system andour place within it?”

That has to be their preoccupation sim-ply because their position prevents themfrom even imagining that there might beanother way of organizing society, how-ever much we scream at them the obvi-ous: that capitalism has failed, that it isdestroying the necessary preconditionsof human life on earth, that we despe-rately need to organize social relations in

a different way.

Capitalism is dying, but it is not yet clearwhether we will all die with it, or be ableto create something else before it bringsus down. The near-collapse of the bank-ing system in 2008 and the attempt in theagreement of July 13 (and the correspon-ding measures in so many other coun-tries) to impose a fierce restructuring ofsocial relations in order to reduce themassive overhang of debt indicate,firstly, that capitalism as a systemcontinues to be very unstable,and, secondly, that it isunderstood (at least by thecapitalists) that we are theproblem.

We are the ones who needto be restructured, remoulded.We are the crisis of capital. Theimportant thing for capital to survive is toimpose its discipline on the way that wework and the way that we live. For capi-tal it is necessary that we should learn toobey, that the pride of our heart shouldfail.

The problem is not (or rather, onlysuperficially) Germany or indeed theEurozone. The many analyses that dis-cuss it in these terms take as their startingpoint what was the result of the transi-tion from 2008 to 2015, that is, the posi-tivization of the struggle that was part offocusing it through the state. By doing so,they feed easily into nationalist analysesand they fail to see the connection withthe worldwide storm.

The problem is not this state or that state,

but capital—that is, the way in which re-lations between people are currently or-ganized: the subjection of human activityto the pursuit of profit (in other words,the subjection of use value production tovalue, of useful activity to abstract labor,of wealth to the commodity).

This form of organization is inherentlyantagonistic: it depends on the subordi-nation of people’s activity to an alien lo-gic, a logic that they do not control. Theantagonism also signifies instability: capitaldepends on being able to subordinate usto its logic, to its demands. Our possiblelack of subordination always stands as

threat to capital, as potential crisis.The collapse of Lehman, and the conver-sion of bank debt into sovereign debt, notonly explains the intensification of capi-talist aggression (the “storm”) in all theworld, but also shows dramatically thatthis aggression is grounded in the fragi-lity of the system, in the desperation ofcapital. Behind the aggressive stance ofthe European leaders (and now of the neo-liberal SYRIZA government in Greece)

o, No, Noo 7

Capitalism is dying, but it is

not yet clear whether we will

all die with it, or be able to

create something else before

it brings us down.


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Capital’s problem is not

just that it depends on

us, but that it depends

on the constant

intensification of our

subordination.

Capital’s problem is not just that it dependson us, but that it depends on the constantintensification of our subordination. Thatis the significance of Marx’s critique ofvalue as a social relation. It is not just thatmoney rules, but that the rule of moneyhas a dynamic that forces capital to makeus produce things more and more quickly,more and more efficiently.

Capital cannot stand still: in order to sur-vive it has to constantly intensify its sub-ordination of every aspect of human life toits logic. Unlike any other form of domi-nation, it is constantly driven by its owninadequacy. Its difficulty in achieving thedegree of subordination that it demands isreflected in the long-term growth of debt.

Debt is essentially a game of make-believe:it is capital saying “if we cannot make theworkers produce the profits we require,if we cannot impose the submission thatwe require, then we shall pretend that wecan: we shall create a monetary image ofthe profits we need.” Philip Coggan com-ments:

In the last forty years, the world hasbeen more successful at creating claimson wealth than it has at creating wealthitself. The economy has grown, but asset

prices have risen faster, and debts have risen faster still. Debtors, from specu-lative homebuyers to leading govern-

ments, have made promises that theyare unlikely to meet in full. Creditorswho are counting on those debts to be

repaid will be disappointed.

The difficulty of reconciling the social

pressures that arise from the humanityof humans with capital’s need to dehu-manize us and make us into machines forproducing profit is reflected in the ever-expanding breach between the creationof debt and the creation of wealth. Thiscreates a fierce scramble, a vicious and

bloody game of musical chairs as credi-tors fight to make sure that the debts arepaid, debtors fight to try and push the

burden of the debt on to other debtorsand all together try to impose greater dis-cipline, greater productivity and lowercosts on the population of the world.

ROAR MAGAZINE o, No, No

Neoliberalism is not a

policy chosen by

governments, it is

simply the violence of

the world in which

they exist.


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Neoliberalism is not a policy chosen bygovernments, it is simply the violence of theworld in which they exist, the viciousnessof the game that they play and must playsimply by virtue of being states dependenton the reproduction of capital in their ter-ritories.

Any state, in order to secure its own exis-tence, must try to promote the reproduc-tion of capital within its boundaries: thefierce game of musical chairs betweencreditors and debtors that results from the

enormous expansion of debt at the worldlevel reproduces itself both within states asthe competitive drive to provide the bestconditions for capital accumulation, and

between states as each tries to make surethat the roof (which is bound to collapsesomewhere) falls somewhere else and noton it; that it should fall in this case not inBerlin or Frankfurt but in Athens andThessaloniki.

The euro and indeed all monetary regimesare ways of playing this game: what distin-guishes the euro from other currencies isthat, having been created in the era of over-whelming debt, there is a specific aggres-siveness written into its rules of functioning.

The violence of the capitalist game is notthe same as it was fifty years ago, when theconditions created by fascism, the slaughterof about 100 million people and perhaps thefear of communism had created a space forsome sort of welfare capitalism. It wouldseem that this is no longer viable, and cer-tainly this seems to be the message beingspelt out by the European politicians in thenegotiations.

The negotiations were a long-drawnout lesson in which Merkel and Schäu-

ble taught Tsipras what it means to leada state in today’s capitalism. They had toexplain to him patiently over and overagain: “Keynes is dead, long dead. Forgetabout creating a benevolent capitalism ora fairer system. There is no room for that.As the leader of the state, you must imple-ment aggressive, neoliberal policies in or-der to attract capital and satisfy the moneymarkets.”

Their pupil was very slow, but at last helearnt, and now the SYRIZA governmentis committed to being a neoliberal govern-ment, just like all the others.

Grexit, the exit of Greece from the Eu-rozone, would probably make little diffe-rence in this respect. Its merit would be toprolong and magnify the cry of No to thecapitalist attack, but as a policy its implica-tions would be not so very different fromthose imposed through the negotiations.If Greece is to remain a capitalist society,and whether or not there is a default onthe debt or part of it, it has to provide con-ditions that are attractive to capital andthat almost certainly includes introducinglabor reforms, cutting back on the welfarestate, reducing pensions, privatizing state-owned assets and so on.

It is hard to see that Greece’s direct subor-dination to the money markets would bevery different from the same subordina-tion mediated through the euro. It couldperhaps provide the basis for an alterna-tive capitalist restructuring, but even if itdid, there is little reason to think that this

would be less aggressive than the Agree-ment of July 13, 2015. Greece probablydoes not have the natural resources toexploit that might provide a way of softe-ning such a restructuring, as was the casein Argentina.

This third No is certainly a “No, it doesn’twork,” but it is also related to the earlierNo’s in the sense that the chronic expan-sion of debt arises from people in all theworld saying, often quietly, “No, we willnot become robots, No, we are not willing

to, or perhaps we are not capable of, satis-fying the demands of capital.”

The near-collapse of

the banking system is

an expression of our

strength, but it is an

expression that is often

difficult to recognize as

such.

In that sense the near-collapse of the banki ng system is an express ion of ourstrength, the strength of our everydaylives and habits, but it is an expressionthat is often difficult to recognize assuch. The capitalists are right to blameus for capital’s crisis. We must respond:“Yes, we are the crisis of capital. Andwe proud of it.”

IV. THE NEXT TIME

Three No’s, each one followed by a posi-tive reintegration into the system. TheNo of the referendum of July 5 was con-verted immediately into the Agreementof 13 July. The great No of December2008 was gradually institutionalized andterritorialized into the rise of SYRIZA.The near-collapse of the banking systemin October 2008 was overcome throughthe conversion of the banking debt intosovereign debt and the implementation of

austerity policies throughout the world.

Each positivization presents the image ofhard reality: that is the way the world is,there is no other way. And yet the threeNo’s bear testament that it is not so. Thisworld of capitalist reality is not only acatastrophe for humanity, it is also veryantagonistic, very unstable, very fragile.Most commentators agree that the agree-ment between Greece and the Eurozonewill not work: the government may suc-ceed in introducing its measures of aus-terity, but it is very unlikely to be able tomeet its debt repayment obligations.

It is also very unlikely that the austeritypolicies introduced in all the world will

be enough to restore a more sustainablerelation between debt and wealth crea-tion: it is very likely that there will bemore near-collapses, or indeed total col-lapses, of the financial system.

It is also clear that capital has not suc-ceeded in its ambition of crushing com-pletely the pride of the heart and thatthere will be many more explosions of


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of rage-hope-dignity both in Greeceand elsewhere. What we need is notthe miserable “courage of hopeless-ness,” but the courage of our own ab-surdity.

The Greek experience suggests that theonly way out of this is to tell capital togo to hell. There is no middle ground.We must liberate our creative potential(our productive forces) from the domi-nation of money, of profit, to the pointwhere we can tell capital that we are

not interested in it, that we do not needto attract it to our territory or area ofactivity, that we do not need employ-ment by capital, that we are quite hap-py without it and that it should takeitself off to hell.

There are millions of people pushingin this direction in all the world, out ofchoice and out of necessity or a com-

binat ion of the two. T here a re mil lionsof cracks in the domination of capital,millions of experiments in other waysof living, in creating a common well-

being that is not driven to profit. How-

JOHN HOLLOWAY

John Holloway is a Professor in the Posgrado de Sociología, In- stituto de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades, Benemérita Uni-versidad Autónoma de Puebla. He is the author of Change theWorld Without Taking Power (Pluto, 2002) and Crack Capital-ism (Pluto, 2010).

ever, the Greek experience suggests thatwe are not there yet, that there is still along way to go before we can say that wedo not want to attract capital, that we donot need capitalist employment.

The drama of the last few months con-fronts us with our own weakness. Ifwe cannot say No to capitalist employ-ment then we must attract capital. Todo this, we must create optimal condi-tions for capital p rofitability. To do thiswe must adopt aggressive (neoliberal)

policies to strengthen the rule of mon-ey and the subordination of people.The only way out is to say goodbye tocapital. Can we do that? Interstitiallycertainly, but probably not completely.

The only way forward is to accept thecontradictions that this situation en-tails, contradictions that cut througheach and all of us, and at the same timeto do everything we can to say No andNo and No to the capitalist aggressionand to liberate our creative potentialto create ways of living in-against-and-

beyond capit al. There i s no closure.

o, No, No

The Greek experience suggests that the

only way out of this is to tell capital to go

to hell. There is no middle ground.


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ROAR MAGAZINE34

Chronicles

of a DefeatForetold

SYRIZA’S CRASH LAND INGHAS EXPOSED BROKENPROMISES, LOSTOPPORTUNITIES AND ABITTER DIVORCE WITHTHE MOVEMENTS.

Theodoros Karyotis

AFTER SYRIZA

When viewed from the out-side, the relationship ofthe SYRIZA party with

the grassroots movements that have

been resis ting austerity on the groundin the past five years can easily be idea-lized. After all, both were responses toa barbaric attack on the Greek popularclasses, and both aimed to put an endto neoliberal structural adjustment.A closer examination, however, dem-onstrates the fundamental differences

between the two projects, and can re-veal that their confluence was a meremarriage of convenience that ended ina bitter divorce.


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ROAR MAGAZINE36

Does this engagement of the grassrootswith political power always have to endin disappointment? Is there anything a“progressive” government can do to ex-pand the field of action for emancipa-tory efforts through the promotion ofsocial self-initiative? Is the state an ap-propriate instrument of social changefor those who seek to transform every-day life and social relations from the

bottom up?

CRASH LANDING

The crash landing of the once meteoricSYRIZA project has been a traumaticevent not only for the Greek middleand lower classes, which had depositeda lot of their hopes on the promises ofthe party to reverse the Troika’s ne-farious austerity measures, but also forthe European left, which envisioned achange of course for the project of Eu-ropean integration, and saw in the faceof ambitious Alexis Tsipras a leaderwho would be up to the task.

It is now painfully clear that, despitethe Greek government’s intentions,the strategy of pursuing a reversal inthe terms of austerity without break-ing with the institutions of neoliberaldomination—the EU, the Eurozoneand the IMF—has backfired. Its nego-tiation tactic, that is, to use mere forceof argument to try to convince thehardened ideologues of the EU and theIMF that austerity in Greece has notonly created recession and misery, buthas also failed to make the sovereign

debt any more manageable, has utterlyfailed. The real agenda of said institu-tions is the continuation, at any cost, ofa set of policies that facilitates the pen-etration of capital in all spheres of life.

This is because European capitalistelites are facing a crisis of their own—acrisis of profitability, provoked by therace to the bottom among capitalistsuperpowers. The preferred way outfor the European capitalist class is tomaintain their levels of profitability

by turni ng their own crisi s into a so-cial and environmental crisis: on theone hand, to lower production costs

by compressi ng wages and external-izing the cost of social reproduction(resulting in precarization as well asthe dismantling of public healthcare,education, benefits, and so on), and onthe other hand to create new opportu-nities for accumulation by commodify-ing ever more spheres of the social andnatural world (again, through the pri-vatization of healthcare, education, in-frastructure, but also of water, energy,land and minerals).

In this respect, there is no better ex-cuse to bring about this transforma-tion than to capitalize on the sovereigndebt crisis. The structural adjustmentof the Greek economy is a prelude tothe transformation of social relationsacross the whole continent in favorof capital. The outcome of the nego-tiations is a reminder that governmentscannot simply “opt out” of this process.

It is now painfully clear that the strategy of pursuing a reversalin the terms of austerity withoutbreaking with the institutionsof neoliberal domination hasbackfired.

P H O T O B Y J A N W E L L M A N , V I A F L I C K R


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ROAR MAGAZINE38 Chronicles of a Defeat Foretold 39

UNCONDITIONALSURRENDER

The terms of the Greek government’ssurrender to the neoliberal forces inEurope are humiliating. Not on ly werethere no concessions made to the newgovernment, but the “partners” wentout of their way to make sure the meas-ures would be punitive and dispropor-tional. Some analysts even argue thatthe current program is designed to fail,

creating further pressures for adjust-ment and holding the people of Greecehostage.

Not only has the SYRIZA-led govern-ment foregone the totality of its elec-toral “Program of Thessaloniki” to alle-viate the humanitarian crisis, but it wasforced to enact a series of harsh meas-ures designed to further dispossess themiddle and lower classes through hori-zontal cuts and unjust taxation, privat-

ize major public infrastructure—ports,highways, airports, water and energycompanies among them—and handover political sovereignty to the insti-tutions of the Troika.

In an ironic turn of events, the govern-ment has disregarded the overwhelm-ing popular rejection of austerity inthe July referendum and adopted theexact same arguments of the previousadministrations to push through a setof measures that are disastrous for the

social majority, all the while maintain-ing the rhetoric of social justice andopposition to the oligarchy. Tsipras’main priority is that the “first-ever left-wing government” holds on to power,even at the cost of having to implementa thoroughly right-wing structural ad-

justment program. What we are wit-nessing, then, is a renewal of the politi-cal elite without a considerable changein the underlying politics.

Tsipras’ newly-adopted “responsiblestance” and “pragmatism” is now ap-plauded by the most unlikely allies:the European elites and the right-wingopposition in Greece. And the Euro-pean hawks have plenty of reason tocelebrate: it would be unthinkable toimpose such a far-reaching auster-ity package under the previous, fragileand isolated right-wing government.It took a new, progressive governmentwith enormous reserves of politicalcapital to be able to do that.

Tsipras’ main priority

is that the “first-ever

left-wing government”

holds on to power, even

at the cost of having to

implement a thoroughly

right-wing structural

adjustment program.

AUSTERITY WITH A HUMAN FACE?

SYRIZA’s new political project, that of being a more benignadministrator of capitalist barbarity, signifies its transforma-tion into a moderate, centrist, social-liberal force: the party hascompleted in only a few months the rightward trajectory thatEuropean social democratic parties took decades to complete.This development is attested by the split of the party’s left-wingand its molding into an anti-eurozone, anti-austerity force thatgoes by the name “Popular Unity”—intentionally reminiscentof Allende’s front of the same name in 1970s Chile.

These developments also put into question the basic program-

matic premises of the entire European left: has the fight for “lessausterity” and “more growth” become the insurmountable ho-rizon of emancipatory politics today?

Indeed, of all of SYRIZA’s mistakes and betrayals, this one isthe most damaging for the cause of social emancipation: in itsquantum leap from anti-austerity left to social-liberal centrism,Tsipras and his team of pragmatists have imposed a peculiar“End of History” on the Greek population: neoliberal adjust-ment is viewed as something inevitable, much like a natural dis-

aster, which needs a heroic and determined public administra-tion to alleviate its effects on the people, to manage the miseryand destruction it causes.

And although Tsipras still has a good chance at winning thegeneral elections—imminent at the time of writing—the phrase“there is no alternative” sounds absurd when uttered by politi-cians who nominally belong to the radical left. Yet it soundseven more absurd as an argument directed at a society that hasfor several years now been proposing and implementing count-less radical alternatives from below.

Has the fight for “less austerity” and “more

growth” become the insurmountable horizon

of emancipatory politics today?


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Chronicles of a Defeat Foretold 41

Syriza’s hegemonywithin many social

struggles came ata great cost for themovements.


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A strategic part of this was the foundingof Solidarity4All, a party-funded organi-zation which, despite having its legitima-cy as a facilitator or mediator called intoquestion repeatedly by many grassrootsgroups, has had a remarkable presenceand activity among the endeavors in so-cial and solidarity economy in Greece.Its organizational capacity, its ability tohave full-time paid organizers, its accessto funds and the media, and a promiseof political solution to conflicts, allowedSYRIZA to establish a conflictive but

lasting hegemony within the social move-ments.

Despite the centripetal influence of SYRI-ZA, the Greek grassroots movementshave in the past five years molded them-selves into a genuine constituent power,using their radical imagination to bringinto being new institutions, new social re-lations and new approaches to the organi-zation of social life. The occupation andself-management of the Vio.Me factoryin Thessaloniki; the self-management by

A MARRIAGE OFCONVENIENCE

Throughout the years of resistance tothe neoliberal assault, two conceptionsof politics played out within the socialmovements: on the one hand, politics as“the art of the possible,” related to thegrowing influence of SYRIZA in socialstruggles; on the other hand, politics asan exercise of radical imagination andexperimentation, put forward by the

commons-based alternatives.

Since 2010, the severe crisis of legitima-tion of the political system and its satel-lites—parties, trade unions, and so on—

brought forward new political subjectsand innovative projects that aimed tochallenge the state and the capitalist mar-ket as the dominant organizing principlesof social life, to propose new avenues to-wards social and economic wellbeing.Movements based on equality, solidar-ity, self-management and participation,which proposed innovative models ofcollective use and management of thecommons.

Even when they do not explicitly stateso, these movements are deeply anti-capitalist, as they aim to cut off the lifelineof European capitalism by weakening themarket’s grip on society (through work-place occupations, solidarity economies,

barter networks, food sovereignty, andthe like) or by resisting attempts to com-modify the natural commons (throughmovements against mining and waterprivatization, for instance).

Despite the admirable efforts of innu-merable people across the country, thesenew commons-based movements failedto produce a political expression—and bypolitical we should not necessarily un-derstand electoral, but rather a unifyingforce to gather the disparate experimentsin social creativity and bring them toge-ther into a coherent proposal of wholesalesocial change. SYRIZA took advantageof this shortcoming in the movements,allowing it to ride the wave of social mo-

bilization in Greece and construct a solid

hegemony within many social strugglesin the past five years.

This hegemony, however, came at a greatcost for the movements. By its nature,SYRIZA is much more understandingof the type of struggles that envision astronger state as the mediator of socialantagonisms. This has resulted in the cur-tailing of demands that did not fit into acoherent program of state management—including most projects that revolvearound popular self-management of thecommons.

Starting in 2012, the meteoric electoralrise of SYRIZA put an end to the crisisof legitimation, since it produced a longawaited institutional response to thecrisis. With it came a relative demobili-zation, and a desire of institutionaliza-tion of the struggles. This desire was notpeculiar to the Greek context: Spain isanother country where powerful grass-roots mobilization gave way to a desireto “storm the institutions” (“asaltar lasinstituciones”).

Despite the centripetal

influence of SYRIZA,

the Greek grassroots

movements have in the

past five years molded

themselves into a

genuine constituent

power.

Important theorists who championedand celebrated the horizontal move-ments of 2011 soon found themselvesseduced by the electoral rise of Syrizain Greece and Podemos in Spain, andadvocated for alliances between thegrassroots and the rising left-wingparties that fought for control over thestate—or in Negri’s terms, betweenconstituent and constituted power.

Negri’s theory undercuts a lot of theanalyses arising amid the post-squareshangover. As expressions of constitu-ent power, the movements aim totransform social reality and proposealternatives from the bottom up. Theparty, by capturing the heights of theconstituted power—the state and itsinstitutions—is responsible for bring-ing about widespread social change,

based on the social creativity of theconstituent power.

While a small part of (the old) SYRIZAhas always had a grassroots mentality,from 2010 onwards the party has invest-ed quite a bit of effort in consolidatingits influence within grassroots struggles.Despite having only a negligible pres-ence within trade unionism—a spheretraditionally dominated by the GreekCommunist Party (KKE) and the nownear-extinct PASOK—SYRIZA stead-fastly established its presence within allgrassroots social struggles.

CONSTITUENT AND

CONSTITUTED POWER


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its own employees of ERT, the national broadcaster shut down by the previousgovernment; the dozens of solidarityclinics; the proliferation of workers’ co-operatives; the proposal of Initiative 136in Thessaloniki to bring the city’s waterprovider under citizens’ control—theseare just a few of the more visible effortsto transform society through social self-initiative.

Has SYRIZA also fulfilled its part in theimplicit bargain, that of the administra-

tor of a “constituted power” that will turnthese experiments in social self-determi-nation into legitimate institutions? HasSYRIZA’s capture of state power beenan opportunity for the movements toachieve institutional recognition of theirdemands and struggles?

THE “CONQU EST” OF STATEPOWER

Quite the contrary: it soon became ob-vious that SYRIZA’s state project doesnot quite dovetail with the demands of asociety that is exploring ways to governitself, but also that SYRIZA is unwillingor unable to deliver on its own electoralpromises. This realization has led to a bit-ter divorce between SYRIZA and its for-mer allies within the movements, and haslargely lifted the veil of illusion regardingtop-down solutions to social, environ-mental and class conflicts.

Of course it is evident today that the na-tional government represents only a tiny

It has become obvious that SYRIZA’s

state project does not quite dovetail

with the demands of a society that is

exploring ways to govern itself.

part of real power. There are parts of theGreek state that are permanently out ofreach of the government, especially thedeep state of the judicial power, which is

by its nature very conservative; the armedforces, which are penetrated by the ex-treme right; and the state’s entrenched

bureaucracy. There is also, of course, theall-pervading power of the mass mediaand the oligarchy that controls them.

SYRIZA does not only seem incapable ofconfronting these powers; what is more,elements within the SYRIZA-led gov-ernment (such as the influential DeputyPrime Minister Yannis Dragasakis) haveactively aligned themselves with thedomestic and international elites, thusguaranteeing the continuation of thepolicies of the previous governments inmany areas.

This is not only a weakness inherent toSYRIZA: it is an indication of the inad-equacy of modern representative de-mocracy. Vast areas of real power arecompletely out of reach of democraticcontrol, even for the flimsy democraticcontrol afforded by the institutions ofrepresentation. Prime Minister Tsiprasspent months reiterating that “we havethe government but not the power.”

However, his vision for the active involve-ment of society goes as far as organizingimpromptu pro-government demonstra-tions, as was the case during the recentdebt negotiations and the mobilizationsahead of the referendum. This concep-tion of “popular power” as an accessoryto governmental power is simply a cari-cature of what a real popular democracywould look like.


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BROKEN PROMISES AND LOSTOPPORTUNITIES

So, what can a government that has afinancial gun against its head do to de-serve its “progressive” or “left-wing” cre-dentials? Many people, both within thegovernment and the movements, hopedthat it could use its power to help expandthe spaces of action of the popular move-ments, help safeguard the conquests ofthe popular struggles, side with the weakin their fight against the powerful.

Rather than raising a criticism of thegovernment’s approach in the field ofGreece’s relation with its creditors, acriticism which seems to be the mainconcern of the new Popular Unity partyand most of the left-wing opposition, letus focus on lost opportunities and brokenpromises: let us look into some exampleswhere the SYRIZA government, insteadof ratifying what the popular struggleshave conquered, has—by action or by in-action—sided with the old regime againstthose who have nominally been its “al-lies” in the previous years.

Many people hoped that SYRIZA could

use its power to help expand the spaces

of action of the popular movements and

side with the weak in their fight againstthe powerful.

ERT:

Until it was shut down by the previous government in 2013,ERT was Greece’s national broadcaster. Many of the work-ers became unemployed and some found work at NERIT, thenew public broadcaster set up exclusively on partisan criteria.A great number of militant media workers, however, occupiedthe ERT buildings and kept broadcasting in a self-managedway, with all decisions taken in a horizontal manner, and withthe citizens playing a protagonistic role in shaping the broad-caster’s programming.

The workers thus set the blueprint for a new kind of public—or common, in this case—radio and television. They repeatedlydescribed their vision in detailed proposals for the operation ofERT. SYRIZA was involved in the struggle and promised the

broadcaster’s reinstatement and a victory for the proposals ofthe workers.

However, the new law passed by the SYRIZA-led governmentin May totally disregards the period of self-management. It re-instates the workers under the same top-down structure andimposes a CEO of questionable intentions, with no provisionfor society’s involvement in content creation. The new man-agement went as far as cancelling the shows of the media work-ers who heroically kept ERT open for two years as “too radical.”All in all, the government ignored society’s proposal to create anew model of broadcasting as a commons, and it reinstated thepre-crisis model of corporatized public television.

The government ignored society’s

proposal to create a new model of

broadcasting as a commons.


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VIO.ME:

Vio.Me was a building materials factoryin Thessaloniki. As so many other com-panies in Greece, the owners abandonedthe workplace leaving millions in unpaidwages. The workers of the factory, withthe support of a vibrant solidarity move-ment, seized the means of production,and have been manufacturing and dis-tributing ecological detergents out of the

recuperated workplace through horizon-tal and collective procedures.

However, the state-appointed trustee, incollusion with the ex-owners and pow-erful business interests, are trying to liq-uidate the premises, and thus create thelegal ground to evict the Vio.Me cooper-ative. Through militant action and con-tinuous struggle, the workers demandeda political solution to the conflict: thatthe state activates legal mechanisms ofexpropriation (since the state is one of

the main creditors of bankrupt Vio.Me)to ensure the continuation of production.

This mechanism, which has been usedwith significant success in Argentina,presupposes that employment, the con-tinuation of production and society’s ef-forts to reactivate the ailing economy arevalued higher than the private interestsof those who want to see through the de-struction of this experiment in popular

industrial self-management. That is, itpresupposes the political will to put theinterests of the many over the interests ofthe few.

However, despite the initial commitmentof the government to push forward a po-litical solution and create an adequatelegal framework, the correspondingministers kept silent, and the promisesto use governmental power against eco-nomic power remained unfulfilled. Allthe while, the trustee is stepping up the

legal battle against the recuperated facto-ry to anticipate any political solutions tothe conflict. Despite the imminent threatof liquidation, the nominally “left-wing”government lacked in political will toside with the workers against capital.

Promises to use governmental power against

economic power remained unfulfilled. The

nominally “left-wing” government lacked in

political will to side with the workers against

capital.

www.viome.org


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THESSALONIKI WATERCOMPANY:

In 2011, the government announced theprivatization of the water and seweragecompany of Thessaloniki. Democracy ac-tivists who were at the moment deliber-ating in the squares united with the waterworkers to propose an innovative modelof water self-management as a commons.They created Initiative 136, with the aimof participating in the public tender toclaim the water company in the name

of the citizens, and bring it under socialcontrol through local non-profit coop-eratives, inspired by the Bolivian watercommittees—briefly discussed in this is-sue by Oscar Olivera.

Politicians linked to the SYRIZA par-ty upheld the state management of thecompany and, totally unfamiliar withthe vocabulary of the commons, tried tomarginalize the plan of Initiative 136 anddefame it as “popular capitalism”, despitethe obvious absence of a profit motive.

Notwithstanding the internal divisions,Thessaloniki’s water movement orga-nized to confront the common enemy, inthe face of the transnational water com-pany Suez. After a non-binding grass-roots referendum that demonstrated theoverwhelming opposition of Thessalon-iki’s inhabitants, as well as a decision bythe constitutional court that upheld thepublic character of water, the privatiza-tion process was paralyzed.

It is ironic that the party that claimedhegemony within Thessaloniki’s water

movement will now oversee the partialprivatization of the company: accordingto the terms of the new memorandum, aconsiderable part of the water company’sshares is up for grabs. Although the ma-

jority has to remain state-owned, in linewith the court ruling, this partial pri-vatization of the water company is only apreamble to capital’s assault on this vitalelement. The water movement now hasto rise up against its former ally and to-day’s administrator of neoliberal policies.

Politicians linked to

SYRIZA, totally

unfamiliar with the

vocabulary of the

commons, upheld the

state management of the

Thessaloniki water

company, and the party

that once claimed hegemony within the

water movement will

now oversee its partial

privatization.


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ROAR MAGAZINE52

SKOURIES GOLD MINE:

In Skouries, Halkidiki, a gold mine is in devel-opment by the Canadian company EldoradoGold in collaboration with AKTOR S.A.,Greece’s “national contractor”, owned

by Giorgos Bobolas, the personificationof Greek oligarchic power. The localpopulation has waged a long and radicalstruggle against theenvironmentally dis-astrous mine, whichis built among the

region’s old-growthforests, and whichwill poison the aqui-fers that provide ir-rigation and drinkingwater to an area of500km2, endangeringthe local flora andfauna and putting onthe line thousands of

jobs in agriculture, bee-keeping andlow-intensity tour-ism.

All the while, the mining company, de-spite having acquired the mining rights ina scandalous deal with corrupt politiciansthat was condemned by the Europeancourts, uses the language of “progress”and “investment”, utilizing the miners asa human shield, effectively promoting acivil war climate in the area.

SYRIZA took a central role in the strug-gle while it was in opposition, but it al-ways pushed for a “political” solution andit opposed the more radical actions of the

movement and its efforts to coordinateand mobilize outside of formal institu-tions. While in government, it proved in-capable of opposing the plans of the min-ing company. Instead of delivering on itselectoral promise to cancel the mine, itengaged in a small-scale “bureaucraticwar” with the mining company, revokingand re-examining permits, all the while

reassuring theminers thattheir jobs arenot in danger.

Even the halt-ing of Eldo-rado’s activ-ity in August2015—perfectlytimed with theannouncementof national elec-tions — doesnot seem to beaimed at stop-ping the mine,

but rather atobliging the company to “adhere to en-vironmental regulations”—seriously de-graded by five years of structural adjust-ment. Prime Minister Tsipras declaredthat he cannot “destroy 5,000 jobs” byshutting down the mine—a gross over-estimation of Eldorado’s real numberof staff. This stance has already sparkedmass resignations of party members inthe area.

The anti-mining movement is now wellaware that the strategy of the govern-ment is to gain political time, without

POLICE REPRESSION:

Another important source of discontent within the move-ments relates to the issue of police repression. Before its as-cent to power, SYRIZA members were part of the protesterswho were systematically beaten, tear-gassed, persecuted andframed by the forces of order. It is common knowledge that theGreek armed forces and police are penetrated by supporters ofthe neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party, and have been involved inappalling incidents of power abuse in the past years.

In spite of SYRIZA’s electoral promises, however, the Ministerof Interior appointed by Tsipras did not even try to root out thefascist elements from the police. On the contrary, he appeareddetermined to justify the ongoing cover-up of investigations ofpolice brutality, and he declared—much the same as his pre-decessors—that the main problem of public order is ‘anarchistviolence’.

In spite of SYRIZA’s electoral promises, the Minister of the

Interior did not even try to

root out the fascist elements

from the police.

While in government,

SYRIZA proved

incapable of

opposing the plans

of the Eldorado

mining company

for the gold mine in

Skouries

modernization.

planning to confront national and transnational capital in thearea. Trusting SYRIZA’s “political solution” now looks like alot of wasted time, while the police keep violently repressing allprotest and the judicial powers go on criminalizing the struggleand prosecuting local residents in the hundreds.


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It is peculiar

how a “radical

left” government has limited its

field of action to

an area—

individual civil

rights—that

constitutes the

province of

liberalism par

excellence.

CIVIL RIGHTS:

At home, the only field where the SYRI-ZA-led government proved to be effectiveis in the field of individual civil rights. Itgranted citizenship to second-generationimmigrants, it reverted a handful of—butnot all—repressive laws passed by previ-ous governments to criminalize popularresistance, and it has extended the rightof civil union to same-sex couples.

Without underestimating the impor-

tance of such social advances and thestruggles required to bring about suchprogressive reforms, we should point outthat it seems peculiar how a “radical left”government has limited its field of actionto an area that constitutes the province ofliberalism par excellence.

Indeed, since the European left whole-heartedly embraced the capitalist econ-omy as the insurmountable horizon ofour times, thus precluding the possibilityof collective social emancipation, it hastaken up the historical cause of liberalismas the champion of individual libertiesand human rights, without challengingthe underlying economic and power re-lations, or questioning the farcical natureof representative democracy.


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NOSTALGIADRIVENMODERNIZATION

There is, moreover, a fundamental oxy-moron at the heart of SYRIZA’s politicalproject. On the one hand, its conceptionof social change, as simply a defense ofthe pre-austerity “golden years” of Greekcapitalism, is making it advocate for poli-cies that are oddly in line with those ofthe old political regime. On the otherhand, it could be argued that SYRIZA’sreal project, a lot like that of European

social democracy in the post-war period,is not the gradualovercoming ofcapitalism, but itsrationalization andmodernization.

In reality, SYRIZAdreams of turninga feudal, parasiticand colonially-minded Greekoligarchic upper-class into a real agent of production, in-vestment and employment, which wouldpromote economic growth as a precondi-tion for prosperity. At the same time, itaspires to be the political force that guar-antees this capitalist modernization.

Let us take an example that has beentalked about a lot in the Greek context—that of the radio frequencies. The Greekoligarchic mass media, in their rentiermindset, consider the airwaves their“birthright”. They occupy them arbitrar-ily, emitting as they please without pay-ing a cent for their use. What would be

the alternative models of allocation ofthis common resource?

The traditional communist left wouldnationalize the radio frequencies—i.e.,

bring them under state contro l—andallocate them according to a set of cri-teria of perceived ‘public interest’. Ina commons-based or post-capitalistapproach, by contrast, the users wouldself-manage the radio frequencies, col-lectively setting the rules and limits ofuse, thereby permitting the existence

of community media, now driven toextinction bycommercial TVand radio sta-tions.

S o w h a t i sS Y R I Z A ’ sm u c h - a d v e r -tised position?To auction theuse of the radiofrequencies to

the highest bidder, thus imposing thelaw of supply and demand onto thisfield. By what perverse twist of logic isenforcing the laws of the market con-sidered a “left-wing” policy when itcomes to crushing oligarchic power?

Although the rationalization of a cor-rupt and clientelist state can be a wel-come change, we should never confusethis with the move towards a post-capitalist future, which has been theraison d’être of emancipatory politicsever since its inception in the eight-eenth and nineteenth centuries.

At the same time, we should also be cautious about celebratingthe state-centric “Plan B” of national economic reconstructionoutside the Eurozone, advocated by the left-wing opposition,which includes SYRIZA’s splinter party Popular Unity, led byformer Energy Minister Lafazanis. Popular Unity representsanother top-down perception of politics, which aims to guar-antee growth and jobs through the reassertion of national con-trol over fiscal and monetary policy. This conception still envisions sovereign Greece as a competi-tive economy in the international markets, without challengingthe underlying assumptions of a “return to growth” and the ex-pansion of production, consumption and credit. And arguably,

being competitive today invariably means to attract investment by compressing the living standards of workers in favor of capi-tal, while “growth” can only be achieved through environmen-tal and labor deregulation, the commodification of nature, anda continuous reliance on the fossil fuels that are heating up ourplanet.

A reasonable alternative course of action would have been toenvision a form of political decentralization, food autonomy, analliance with the forces of society against capital, and a pro-motion of the commons as an alternative source of prosperity.Unfortunately, the only place the commons have in the plansof the Greek left is as a “safety net”, a method of social contain-ment which will prevent eruptions of popular discontent andwill give the government an inexpensive instrument to exercisesocial policy while at the same time dismantling the welfarestate.

Is the left nowadays prohibited of dreaming of a world be-yond capitalism? Has the desire for productive reconstruction,growth-fueled prosperity and the welfare state as a mecha-nism of social inclusion become the horizon of emancipatorythought today?

SYRIZA aspires to be

the political force that

guarantees capitalist

modernization.Unfortunately, the only place the commons have

in the plans of the Greek left is as a “safety net”.


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To approachself-determination,organized society

should find

creative waysto constituteitself as a

counterpower,without

becomingabsorbed

within theexisting

institutions ofpower.


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THE STATE AS VEHICLE OR AS OBSTACLE?

It is true that in this cycle of mobilization against capitalism’smutation into an all-pervading totality, an old debate withinthe emancipatory movements has been reheated, and two dif-ferent—and seemingly incommensurable—conceptions of thestate and its relationship to social change have come to the fore.

On the one hand there is the conception of the state as the lastfrontier of democratic control, the last bastion of power acces-sible to the common man, before we enter the uncharted ter-ritory of corporate domination and opaque centers of powerimposing their rules on social life. Much of the contemporary

left is plunged into a nostalgia of the European post-war settle-ment, where the state mediated class conflicts and establishedthe necessary consensus for capitalist domination. That ar-rangement is taken as the yardstick by which to judge socialprogress in present-day Europe.

Despite the failures of the 20th century left—reformist andrevolutionary alike—in turning the state into an instrument ofsocial emancipation, a vision still persists that the conditions ofour emancipated future, the new social relations that will shapeour post-capitalist life, can be regulated into being through theseizure of state power.

On the other hand there is the opposite perception, whichsuggests that even in its more benign forms the state is an in-strument of domination and of the professionalization of poli-tics, effectively usurping society of the ability to govern itself.Advocates of this vision propose to either fight against the stateor act despite the state.

While we should resist the idea that we can somehow “smashthe state”—the state is a social relation rather than a thing, so

THE QUESTION OF POWERREMAINS UNRESOLVED

Although the bottom-up transformationof social reality is a sine qua non for over-coming capitalism—a fact too easily over-looked by the institutional left—the ques-tion of the capitalist totality, of resisting,subverting and confronting the powersthat be, is too complex to be addressed bya disparate and unconnected assortmentof grassroots post-capitalist endeavors.The debate on political organizing, oncollective action, on transgressing thedominant institutions, on confrontingpower, is as timely as ever.

The state is neither the fount that so-cial relations spring from—as much of

today’s left-wing thought seems to im-ply—nor a force we can simply ignore ordestroy. And, given the token nature ofrepresentative democracy, the state is notsomething that can simply be “captured”either.

To approach self-determination, orga-nized society should find creative waysto constitute itself as a counterpower,without becoming absorbed within theexisting institutions of power. There is

no doubt that the movements’ relation-ship with the state, even with a nomi-nally “progressive” government, shouldremain autonomous, confrontationaland antagonistic. However, militant andcreative ways of penetrating and subvert-ing the institutions have been proposed

by many emancipatory traditions, mostprominently libertarian municipalism.

It is not the objective of this article toestablish a doctrinal one-size-fits-all ap-proach regarding the relationship be-

tween movements and institutions. Eachmovement, according to its territorialand historical circumstances and the con-

jectural correlation of forces, can decideon a strategy of subversion, overriding,infiltration, cooperation, confrontationor penetration in regard to the dominantinstitutions.

However, we should beware the transfor-mation of the party, initially approachedas an “instrument” of the movement, intoan organizational and discursive centerpoint. Confronting the social power ofcapital calls for the permanent mobiliza-tion and involvement of society; gettingsucked into the discourse of state admi-nistration and electoral politics entails avisible danger of incorporation of move-ments into the dominant political order.

Indeed, the ordeal of the Greek left hasdemonstrated the limits of the state-centric approach to social change. Thesocial imaginary of a return to a fair andinclusive capitalism lies in tatters. Thiscan lead to a long winter of depressionfor the people under attack by the forces

While we should resist the idea that we can somehow

“smash the state,” we should also reassess the idea that

we can simply ignore state power.

simply “smashing” it entails a host ofpractical problems—we should also reas-sess the idea that we can simply ignorestate power; that building our new so-cial realities in the shell of the old worldsuffices to eventually do away with thestructures of domination a ltogether.


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ROAR MAGAZINE62

of capital, but perhaps this stage of collective disillusionmentis inevitable. Sooner or later, the field will be open for the realagents of social change: tangible, everyday collectives and indi-viduals rooted in concrete struggles at the local level, disruptingthe flow of power and bringing forward alternatives.

This is the real constituent power, and it has to be independentof the dominant order, not subdued to state and party priori-ties. Eventually, as the divorce between SYRIZA and the socialmovements is being consummated, we have to accept that so-cial transformation will be a conflictive and contradictory pro-cess—not simply the outcome of bringing all social forces underthe hegemony of a progressive political party.

If we are to avoid the mistakes of the past and prevent the emer-gence of another messianic electoral force, we should place em-phasis on organization, communication and linking our dispa-rate proposals and groups into a coherent counterpower. Theantagonistic movement should mold itself into the diverse and

broad prefigurative project of a transition beyond capitalism,extending its reach into all areas of social life, to confront on theground the enormous social power of capital.

THEODOROS KARYOTIS

Theodoros Karyotis is a sociologist, translator and activist par-ticipating in social movements that promote self-management, solidarity economy and defense of the commons. He writes onautonomias.net.

If we are to avoid the mistakes of the past

and prevent the emergence of another

messianic electoral force, we should

place emphasis on organization,

communication and linking our

disparate proposals and groups into

a coherent counterpower.


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Bookchin’s Revolutionary Program 65

THE DEMAND FOR A RATIONALSOCIETY SUMMONS US TO BERATIONAL BEINGSTO LIVE UP TOOUR UNIQ UELY HUMAN POTENTIALSAND CONSTRUCT THE COMMUNEOF COMMUNES.

ookchin’s Revolutionary Progra

LIBERTARIAN MUNICIPALISM

The lifelong project of MurrayBookchin (1921-2006) was to tryto perpetuate the centuries-old

revolutionary socialist tradition by reno-vating it for the current era. Confrontedwith the failure of Marxism after World

War II, many, perhaps most radical so-cialists of his generation abandoned theleft. But Bookchin refused to give up onthe aim of replacing capitalism and thenation state with a rational, ecologicallibertarian communist society, based onhumane and cooperative social relations.

Rather than abandon those ideas, hesought to rethink revolution. During the1950s he concluded that the new revolu-

tionary arena would be not the factory but the city; that the new revolutionaryagent would be not the industrial worker

but the citizen; that the basic institutionof the new society must be, not the dicta-torship of the proletariat, but the citizens’assembly in a face-to-face democracy;and that the limits of capitalism were eco-logical.

Moreover, Bookchin concluded thatmodern technology was eliminating theneed for toil (a condition he called “post-scarcity”), freeing people to reconstructsociety and participate in democratic self-government. He developed a program forthe creation of assemblies and confedera-

Janet Biehl


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ROAR MAGAZINE66 Bookchin’s Revolutionary Program 67

The ideal of the “Commune of com-munes,” Bookchin argued to many audi-ences and readers, has been part of revo-lutionary history for two centuries: theideal of decentralized, stateless, and col-lectively self-managed communes, or freemunicipalities, joined together in confe-derations. The sans-culottes of the early

1790s had governed revolutionary Paristhrough assemblies. The Paris Communeof 1871 called for “the absolute autonomyof the Commune extended to all locali-ties in France.” The major nineteenth-century anarchist thinkers—Proudhon,Bakunin, and Kropotkin—all called for afederation of communes.

For Bookchin, the city was the new revo-lutionary arena, as it had been in the past;the twentieth-century left, blinded by its

LIBERTARIAN MUNICIPALISM

engagement with the proletariat and thefactory, had overlooked this fact. His-torically, revolutionary activity in Paris,St. Petersburg, and Barcelona had been

based at least as much in the urban neigh- borhood as in the workplace. During theSpanish Revolution of 1936-37, the anar-chist Friends of Durruti had insisted that“the municipality is the authentic revolu-tionary government.”

Today, Bookchin argued, urban neigh- borhoods hold memories of ancient civicfreedoms and of struggles waged by theoppressed; by reviving those memoriesand building on those freedoms, he ar-gued, we could resuscitate the local po-litical realm, the civic sphere, as the arenafor self-conscious political self-manage-ment.

Politics,

Boockhin

insisted,

is too

important

to be left to

profession-

als—it must

become the province

of ordinary

people.

Much of social life today is trivial and vacuous, he pointed out,in a modernity that leaves us directionless and uprooted, livingunder nation states that render us passive consumers. By con-trast, libertarian municipalism, standing in the tradition of civichumanism, offers a moral alternative, placing the highest valueon active, responsible citizen participation. Politics, it insists, istoo important to be left to professionals—it must become theprovince of ordinary people, and every adult citizen is poten-tially competent to participate directly in democratic politics.

Libertarian municipalism was intended as an expression of thistradition. Rather than seeking to form a party machine to at-tain state power and institute top-down reforms, it addresses the

question that Aristotle asked two-thousand years ago, the cen-tral problem of all political theory: What kind of polity best pro-vides for the rich flourishing of communal human life? Book-chin’s answer: the polity in which empowered citizens managetheir communal life through assembly democracy.

Assembly democracy is a civilizing process that can transform agroup of self-interested individuals into a deliberative, rational,ethical body politic. By sharing responsibility for self-manage-ment, citizens come to realize they can rely on one another—andcan earn one another’s trust. The individual and the communitymutually create each other in a reciprocal process. Embeddingsocial life in ethical ways of life and democratic institutions re-sults in both a moral and a material transformation.

Where assemblies already exist, libertarian municipalism aims

to expand their radical potential; where they formerly existed,it aims to rekind

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