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Storming the Banks

Brian Davey | 02.04.2009 21:28 | Analysis | Climate Chaos | Globalisation

An article appeared on the national Indymedia site calling on us to storm the banks. While I understand the feelings from which it comes I don't think that will achieve very much.

I've been in demonstrations and situations penned up by the police and subject to their intimidation and I know that it's frustrating, an abuse of power and that it just rubs your nose in the rhetoric about there being a right to protest, about our policing and legal system being based on justice.

But I also think that shaking fists at capitalism and smashing the windows of banks is not going to achieve anything at all. Absolutely nothing.

Yes, it ventilates and expresses very angry feelings.....it tells bankers and governments how much they are hated. But so what? They will survive hatred because they have extremely well equipped police forces who enjoy an opportunity to push people, club them, pepper spray them and use CS gas. Being hated is something that has never bothered people in power, it makes them feel even more self important, even more powerful. There is nothing that so much pleases a power junky than to impose their will on the seething rage of others and make them submit. Since it is their power that matters most of all to our betters this power is felt to be at its greatest when they can regard themselves as imposing it on those of us who are their inferiors.

This kind of politics is rather like expecting anything positive to come from writing to my Member of Parliament. It may give expression and ventilate a feeling of repeated outrage but it yields absolutely no return at all. It is futile.

If you are going to have mass action you must have millions of people behind you - and if you want millions of people behind you then you must have a tangible workable alternative that is already in existence, at least in embryo, that they want to defend and fight for. Today's anti capitalist demonstrators don't have anything like that. Sure they are demonstrating against something that is immensely destructive of environment and communities, but they are not demonstrating for something that is a credible alternative.

We have reached the outer limits of a debt based money system and the people in power are struggling to rescue the system with more debt. It won't work - so what it the alternative? If a new money and exchange system is needed then it will have to be created. In the 1930s when the recession was at its depth a small town in Austria established a local non debt based money system and successfully abolished unemployment in the town. If that example had taken hold throughout Austria and Germany there might never have been a second world war. But guess what - the Austrian monetary authorities closed down the experiment. Unemployment returned to what it had been in the town of Woergl. Now that, I think, would have been would have been something work demonstrating for - that would have been something to defy the law over - a workable alternative that is closed down in favour of a system that is in breakdown.

If you want to do something that is going to be an adequate response to this crisis you can protest against the system or you can work to grow and foster tangible productive alternatives. That isn't something that you can do overnight. It requires different skills to organising a demonstration - you need to build trust between people, you need to get people to commit themselves to a process where there will be obstacles to be overcome and some degree of frustration. You need to take the risk that you will embark on a course of action and fail, seeing others lose confidence and melt away. The place for demonstrations is when your approach is showing its value, gaining support and the powers that be move to close it down.

If you don't like the current money system then develop another one in your neighbourhood, your district, your town and network them together. There are now scores of groups all over the world developing complementary currencies.

If you don't like the system of agriculture then develop an alternative model for your community garden or community assisted agriculture. When people enjoy and like what you are doing then get them to set up their own. Once you've shown it works and you are hamstrung for lack of land then start demonstrating if your political overtures for extra land are getting you nowhere.

The chief reason that there is no green in the green new deal is that the multinationals are too integrated into the carbon economy to want to participate and there are not enough real green community level projects and businesses with enough organisational and business skills to take the money, work their way through the obstacles, organisational and technical, to get them put up.

If you think that capitalist consumerism is an inferior lifestyle ethically and that we all have enough to live on comfortably and enjoyably - then show how this lifestyle works in practice - without condescending all those other moral inferiors who haven't had the benefit of reading them same radical tracts as the ones in one's own style club. Spread your ideas by example.

Will this achieve an anti capitalist revolution quickly enough to avert climate catastrophe? Frankly I very much doubt it. The Arctic is melting and our betters are too preoccupied with money making to notice or do anything about it. What I am describing takes time and we don't have much time.

However, while I doubt that we will turn the situation around in time, working to re-create the money systems, the garden and energy projects and the lifestyles that we need does stand a slightly better chance than smashing windows in Threadneedle Street and making the police, the bankers and the establishment politicians feel self important and self righteous......unless and until those demonstrations are promoting viable alternative arrangements that are already getting off the ground and shown to be arrangements that will help millions.

Brian Davey
- e-mail: Brian.Davey@cooptel.net

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Hey how about doing all that AND smashing the banks

03.04.2009 01:36

We don't sit on our hands the other 364 days of the year yknow...

vermianarchomposting


All well and good, but...

03.04.2009 09:21

...as you allude to in your analysis, those in power are not simply going to give it to the people once they realise we've come up with a more healthy and less exploitative way to live. The fight against capital and the state requires constant confrontation in order to force back the boundaries of what is possible and curtail their worst excesses. Whilst you see bank trashing as a pointless symbolic action it does, nonetheless, send a chill down the spines of the venture capitalists, making them realise that they cannot do *anything* they want without fear of popular anger. If no storming of the banks had happened on Wednesday our situation would have been a lot worse.

Besides, I think it's a bit arrogant to suggest that none of those who were involved had any alternatives to offer. As the previous commenter has said, most of us in the anti-capitalist movement have ideas about, and many of us are involved in the practical steps to bring about alternative ways of living after capitalism. And frankly we're not too bothered about the views of the armchair generals who've seen it all before and have a blueprint for us to follow. We have our own dreams of freedom.

Anarchodissenter


364 + 1 days of activism.

03.04.2009 18:21

Brian has spend more years than it would be polite to reveal not only evolving analysis like this, but working on practical sustainable solutions in Nottingham. He is therefore, I am sure, not suggesting that people are not doing other things at other times.

With people from Eastside Climate Collective, Sumac Skillshare, Veggies Catering Campaign and, of course, Nottingham's Riseup Radio crew, there were plenty of opportunities to 'spread (y)our ideas by example' on one day in London, as well on 364 days in Nottingham.

It is good occasionally to show some wider solidarity and, as well as acting locally, to take up an opportunity to think globally and reconnect with friends and colleagues from further afield at an event which might well be perceived as largely symbolic.

From my perspective many people from Nottingham were supporting the Climate Camp in the City, so not necessarily witness to the 'storming of the city'. But we were witness to the storming of the camp and the associated convergence centres, so can bear witness to the way the corporate state fights back.

Pat


Important discussion

03.04.2009 21:09

I think this is a really important debate. I think everyone here has made good points (except for the bit where Anarchodissenter described Brian Davey as an 'armchair general'- obviously you're not familiar with Brian!). What is important to me is that people don't spend their time criticizing tactics which should be complementary. We need to build a new society, economy and culture within the dying carcass of the current system but we also need to break out of it. We need to be creatively productive as well as tactically destructive at the same time. As Brian said he has doubts that we will make a turn around in time- we must and to do so we need to bring industrial capitalism to a halt. The smashing of windows at RBS was obviously not the most useful act towards this objective but it demonstrates a tactic and a tendency which should not be condemned outright but should be criticised when it merely seeks to vent frustration. The destruction we unleash must be selective and effective at bringing down the system we oppose and creating spaces in which new, better ones can flourish...

Big P.J.


I have to agree with last few comments,majority of people there were either

04.04.2009 14:11

hardworking permaculture, recycling workers etc from worker cooperatives or contractors or they are the from the strongest unions like the RMT & the FBU,Rank & file Unison,NUJ etc.
Brian I respect your work on transition town & Iam sure you normally ignore most of the mainstream papers please, all of them are scared of telling the truth sadly as they think they rely on present system for order like most of the police. Of course there are provatuers on these things& people on our side who are so abused & angry they smash afew windows, big deal, millions support us.

Shame on the police there , they often have less discipline than protesters& acted discgracefully, the protesters there were vvvvvvv brave& everyone who went on the demo were hero's. Police wonder why majority of people often hate you, when you do stuff like this millions of people are itching to get you whenever they can& millions of cameras watch everywhere, including your own.
Thats why most of TSG 800riot police where masked up. Protesters I know usually have alot of discipline & only go spikey after years of what orwell said about history,
Write something encouragement please,
your vvvvv depressing sometimes,
We can win, if you think its that bad why dont u just give up or join us in the breeches & help us coordinate,communicate & maintain order for life,please.

Mostly we need more funding& more people to come on these demos to take part properly, rather than stay out at home because of mostly media or police lies or unecessary fear. If you know more details on about a biochar lorry you mentioned to me, I know afew people with HGV licences& if we make any dosh we will give you a decent commission, otherwise I will probably have to research it as well as help build it& drive it& time IS ticking,cheers

Green Syndicalist& Universal Democrat


alternatives

06.04.2009 12:03

Just a quick comment on your alternatives.

1. Replacing currency with currency doesn't make sense, in effect you relplacing capitalism with a mini version of itself, we will still have all the associated problems. greed, theft, corruption.

2. Developing an alternative agriculture system, at least on the scale you are talking about is impossible, we would have had to have seized control of an awful lot of land, sure if there is some kind of revolutionary event, then yes, collectivise the land, grow our own food. Not to mention, the amount of people who work hard all week for minimum wage, who want to use the limited free time for persuits they enjoy, and who won't want to grow their own food.

3. You say " If you think that capitalist consumerism is an inferior lifestyle ethically and that we all have enough to live on comfortably and enjoyably - then show how this lifestyle works in practice."

We don't all have enough to live on comfortably and enjoyably, and never will whilst capitalism exists. I might be able to squat a building, skip and grow my own food, but then I am a single man with no dependants, a family are not going to take on the uncertainty, and bother of moving all the time, nor are the physically, and maybe some mentally ill. then there is possion of land and property, who owns it? certainly not those on low income. Also it's difficult here in this country to eek out a free existence, enjoyably and comfortably, it's impossible in for a large percentage in other coutries.

4 you say: "However, while I doubt that we will turn the situation around in time, working to re-create the money systems, the garden and energy projects and the lifestyles that we need does stand a slightly better chance than smashing windows in Threadneedle Street and making the police, the bankers and the establishment politicians feel self important and self righteous......unless and until those demonstrations are promoting viable alternative arrangements that are already getting off the ground and shown to be arrangements that will help millions."

The majority of Activists that I have met that would have been at threadneedle st. that day, do exactly what you proscribe. they are involved in community gardens, alternatve energy, housing coops, community centres, allotments, skill shares, etc. for all the reasons I have mentioned above, the alternatives you give for taking on the system cannot and will not work. I agree that neither can having a punch up with the cops, and smashing a few windows.

Resistance through Strikes, refusal to pay taxes, mass occupations of factories, universities, and land. I believe we should put our resourses into building for that. These have been the big players that have posed a big threat to capitalism, as in Spains revolution, where then followed by the ideas you put forward.


henry