Turbulence 4
Turbulence: Ideas for movement No. 4: ‘Who can save us from the future?’
Today, the very act of thinking about the future has become a problem. What both capitalism and 'really existing socialism’ had in common was the belief in a future where infinite happiness would spring from the infinite expansion of production: sacrifices made in the present could always be justified in terms of a brighter future. And now? The socialist future has been dead since the fall of the Berlin wall. After that we seemed to live in a world where only the capitalist future existed (even when it was under attack). But now this future, too, is having its obituaries composed, and impending doom is the talk of the town. The 'crisis of the future' – that is, of our capacity to think about the future – is born out of these twin deaths: today it is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.
With this in mind we've assembled a collection of articles that, in different ways, speak to us about futures. As much as we didn’t want people’s ten-point programmes when, in June 2007 we asked ‘What would it mean to win?’, our interest here has nothing to do with futurology. There are no grand predictions. No imminent victory, because comfort-zone wishful thinking is the last thing anyone needs now; but no apocalyptic doom either. Neither are there any forward-view mirrors where capitalism recuperates everything and always gets the last laugh. We must have the modesty to recognise that the future is unknown, not because today is the end of everything or the beginning of everything else, but because today is where we are. What we do, what is done to us, and what we do with what is done to us, are what decide the way the dice will go. This requires the patient and attentive work of identifying openings, directions, tendencies, potentials, possibilities – all of which are things that amount to nothing if not acted upon – and of finding out new ways in which to think about the future.
CONTENTS
1) ‘Introduction: Present Tense, Future Conditional’ by Turbulence
2) ‘1968 and Paths to New Worlds’ by John Holloway
3) ‘The Politics of Starvation: From Ancient Egypt to the Present’ by George Caffentzis
4) ‘6 Impossible Things Before Breakfast: Antagonism, Neoliberalism and Movements’ by The Free Association
5) ‘Global Capitalism: Futures and Options’ by Christian Frings
6) ‘The Measure of a Monster: Capital, Class, Competition and Finance’ by David Harvie
7) ‘The Abolition of the Parliamentary Left in Italy’ by Sandro Mezzadra, with an Introduction by Keir Milburn and Ben Trott
8) ‘There is No Room for Futurology; History Will Decide’ by Felix Guattari, with an Introduction by Rodrigo Nunes and Ben Trott
9) ‘This is Not My First Apocalypse’ by Fabian Frenzel and Octavia Raitt
10) ‘The Movement is Dead, Long Live the Movement!’ by Tadzio Mueller
11) ‘Network Politics for the 21st Century’ by Harry Halpin and Kay Summer
Art work by Octavia Raitt. Cover design, Kristyna Baczynski.
Copies can be ordered from www.turbulence.org.uk
In Germany, copies are available via Red Stuff www.antifa-versand.de
And in North America, copies are available via PM Press www.pmpress.org
All articles are also available, for free, via our website.
Please get in touch with us at
editors@turbulence.org.uk if you are able to help out with distribution, or would like to translate any of the articles published in this issue. Some translations are already available online. See: www.turbulence.org.uk/translations
Donations to cover costs incurred in production and distribution are welcome! They can be made via our PayPal account, here:
http://turbulence.org.uk/donate/ or get in touch with us at editors@turbulence.org.uk
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
To stay informed about future ‘Turbulence’ publications and projects, subscribe to our (very!) low-traffic e-newsletter here: https://lists.riseup.net/www/info/turbulenceannouncementslist
Website: www.turbulence.org.uk
Email: editors@turbulence.org.uk
MySpace: www.myspace.com/turbulence_ideas4movement
Today, the very act of thinking about the future has become a problem. What both capitalism and 'really existing socialism’ had in common was the belief in a future where infinite happiness would spring from the infinite expansion of production: sacrifices made in the present could always be justified in terms of a brighter future. And now? The socialist future has been dead since the fall of the Berlin wall. After that we seemed to live in a world where only the capitalist future existed (even when it was under attack). But now this future, too, is having its obituaries composed, and impending doom is the talk of the town. The 'crisis of the future' – that is, of our capacity to think about the future – is born out of these twin deaths: today it is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.
With this in mind we've assembled a collection of articles that, in different ways, speak to us about futures. As much as we didn’t want people’s ten-point programmes when, in June 2007 we asked ‘What would it mean to win?’, our interest here has nothing to do with futurology. There are no grand predictions. No imminent victory, because comfort-zone wishful thinking is the last thing anyone needs now; but no apocalyptic doom either. Neither are there any forward-view mirrors where capitalism recuperates everything and always gets the last laugh. We must have the modesty to recognise that the future is unknown, not because today is the end of everything or the beginning of everything else, but because today is where we are. What we do, what is done to us, and what we do with what is done to us, are what decide the way the dice will go. This requires the patient and attentive work of identifying openings, directions, tendencies, potentials, possibilities – all of which are things that amount to nothing if not acted upon – and of finding out new ways in which to think about the future.
CONTENTS
1) ‘Introduction: Present Tense, Future Conditional’ by Turbulence
2) ‘1968 and Paths to New Worlds’ by John Holloway
3) ‘The Politics of Starvation: From Ancient Egypt to the Present’ by George Caffentzis
4) ‘6 Impossible Things Before Breakfast: Antagonism, Neoliberalism and Movements’ by The Free Association
5) ‘Global Capitalism: Futures and Options’ by Christian Frings
6) ‘The Measure of a Monster: Capital, Class, Competition and Finance’ by David Harvie
7) ‘The Abolition of the Parliamentary Left in Italy’ by Sandro Mezzadra, with an Introduction by Keir Milburn and Ben Trott
8) ‘There is No Room for Futurology; History Will Decide’ by Felix Guattari, with an Introduction by Rodrigo Nunes and Ben Trott
9) ‘This is Not My First Apocalypse’ by Fabian Frenzel and Octavia Raitt
10) ‘The Movement is Dead, Long Live the Movement!’ by Tadzio Mueller
11) ‘Network Politics for the 21st Century’ by Harry Halpin and Kay Summer
Art work by Octavia Raitt. Cover design, Kristyna Baczynski.
Copies can be ordered from www.turbulence.org.uk
In Germany, copies are available via Red Stuff www.antifa-versand.de
And in North America, copies are available via PM Press www.pmpress.org
All articles are also available, for free, via our website.
Please get in touch with us at
editors@turbulence.org.uk if you are able to help out with distribution, or would like to translate any of the articles published in this issue. Some translations are already available online. See: www.turbulence.org.uk/translations Donations to cover costs incurred in production and distribution are welcome! They can be made via our PayPal account, here:
http://turbulence.org.uk/donate/ or get in touch with us at editors@turbulence.org.uk +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
To stay informed about future ‘Turbulence’ publications and projects, subscribe to our (very!) low-traffic e-newsletter here:
https://lists.riseup.net/www/info/turbulenceannouncementslist Website: www.turbulence.org.uk
Email:
editors@turbulence.org.uk MySpace: www.myspace.com/turbulence_ideas4movement
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Homepage:
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Excerpt from the Introduction
29.07.2008 16:55
PRESENT TENSE, FUTURE CONDITIONAL
By Turbulence (July 2008)
When work on this issue began, tracking down the author of a quote turned out to be more difficult than we thought. You may have heard it too: ‘today it is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism’. Everyone knew it, but had seen it attributed to someone else. Someone even thought they’d been around the time it was first uttered, by somebody at a meeting a few years ago. Further research proved inconclusive: like the story about the man who woke up in a bathtub full of ice without his kidney, it was everywhere, but came from nowhere in particular. Yet, like a self-fulfilling prophecy, this omnipresence seemed to count as its own confirmation. Everyone’s saying it, so it must be true…
Today, it’s the very act of thinking about the future that has become a problem. What both capitalism and really existing socialism had in common was the belief in a future where infinite happiness would spring from the infinite expansion of production. From Lenin’s ‘communism = soviet power + electrification’ to capital’s ‘trickle down effect’, the sacrifices made in the present were always justified in terms of a brighter future. And now? The socialist future has been dead since the fall of the Berlin wall. After that we seemed to live in a world where only the capitalist future existed (even when it was under attack). But now this future, too, is having its obituaries composed. Impending doom, be it ecological, financial, or the result of soaring commodity prices, is the talk of the town. The ‘crisis of the future’ – that is, of our capacity to think about the future – is born out of these twin deaths.
For anti-capitalists, socialism offered two articles of faith. First, a teleological view of history as something that would eventually, and inevitably, take us to communism. Second, a belief in a historical subject – a working class, personified in ‘The Party’, which would become conscious of its historical role and accomplish it. Both these dogmas lie shattered. It’s impossible now to imagine that infinitely expanding production will ever be able to deliver us the good life. And it’s impossible to picture, in any simple way, a subject of social change for whom history is just the inert matter it can transform at will. That’s precisely why it’s easier to visualise catastrophe than transformation – as if capital is the only existing revolutionary force, and its end can only come as the (unwanted, but necessary; conscious, but inevitable) outcome of its own actions.
So as work on this issue drew to a close, we stumbled across another quote we liked (and this time we even know who said it: Franco ‘Bifo’ Berardi): “The future now seems imaginable only as the intersection of catastrophic tendencies. Paradoxically, only from the interference between the various planes of catastrophe does it seem possible to imagine a salvation.” How can we think a path between these two poles, between salvation – the idea that religion or science will save us – and catastrophe? Can we still imagine a future?
Read on: 'Today I See the Future' at:
Turbulence
e-mail:
editors@turbulence.org.uk
Homepage:
http://www.turbulence.org.uk