For this episode, Matt & Jesse build upon their prior discussion (Episode 026) of Erik Olin Wright’s posthumous book, How to Be an Anticapitalist in the 21st Century, by mapping out how we might best choreograph the dance steps in making revolution fully realized. Wright’s historically magnificent project of delineating the internal contradictions of class in America (and the world over) made him the most important Marxist in Sociology post-WWII. After his mapping project of class was completed, the intellectual turned his attention in the latter half of his career to seeing how we might build real utopias in the here and now – after both the failure of statist “proletarian” parties and the success of neoliberalism’s onslaught of rapacious transnational capital, where everything could be outsourced or automated, and where labor was left emaciated, fragmented, and unconscious of its own exploitation. While Wright’s final work provided an excellent diagramming of the strategic logic of Eroding Capitalism, he never outlined how we might orchestrate these various movements on the playing field of global capital in order to build a symphony of revolution. Increasingly, the triumphant narrative that markets “heal the boo-boos” seems ever-less persuasive as capitalism reveals itself to be a harm-grinder against humanity and our desiccated biosphere. Matt will discuss what he argues is our most powerful anticapitalist wedge issue - money in politics, and Jesse will offer his Theory of Emancipatory Struggle along with the strategic directions of The Anticapitalist Compass. In closing, Jesse & Matt will examine how converging emancipatory movements joining in a chorus of revolution can build toward the first glimmers of The Utopian Sphere. The time has come to not only announce that “a better world is possible,” but to detail the choreography of transcending capitalism once and for all. We must make the future ourselves, collectively, and not let the future be made by an oligarchy that seeds DeathCults in its wake.
Mentioned In This Episode:
Erik Olin Wright’s How to Be an Anticapitalist in the Twenty-First Century. Published by Verso Books in 2019.
The Future Is A Mixtape - Episode 026: “How to Erode Capitalism in the 21st Century”
The Phrase “Doublespeak” First Surfaced from George Orwell’s Novel 1984. The novel was originally published in 1949 & became the #1 ranked book on Amazon when Trump won the U.S. Election in 2016: As seen in Kimiko de Freytas Tamura’s Article in The New Yorker: “George Orwell’s ‘1984’ Is Suddenly a Best-Seller”
Jack Smith in The Los Angeles Times: “Doublespeak: A Weapon Aimed at Language”
William Lutz’s Doublespeak. Published in 1989 by Rebel Reads.
Ruth Wilson Gilmore: "Capitalism requires inequality and racism enshrines it.” The quote comes from her essay “Abolition Geography and the Problem of Innocence" in the anthology: Futures of Black Radicalism. Published in 2017 by Verso Press.
Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs: A Wikipedia Definition.
On the Emergence of the Black Panther Party (BPP), a Legendary Organization that Started as a Reading Group at UC Berkeley: Donna Jean Murch’s Living for the City: Migration, Education, and the Rise of the Black Panther Party in Oakland, California. Published in 2010 by University of North Carolina Press.
Doug Henwood’s Interview with Donna Jean Murch About the Black Panthers in Behind the News.
Cory Doctorow in Boingboing: “Library Socialism: A Utopian Vision of a Sustainable Luxuriant Future of Circulating Abundance”
SRSLY WRONG’S PODCAST TRILOGY ON “LIBRARY SOCIALISM”
Episode #189: “Library Socialism & Usufruct”
Episode #196: “Library Socialism & the Irreducible Minimum”
Episode #200: “Library Socialism & Complementarity”
Rosa Luxemburg: A Biography of an Iconoclast & Dissident
Ian Angus in Climate & Capitalism: “The Origin of Rosa Luxemburg’s Slogan ‘Socialism or Barbarism’”
Keynesian Economics: A Wikipedia Definition a Very 20th Century Idea
Selected Excerpt: Chapter 3: “The Foundation of Keynes’ Economics” from The Crisis of Keynesian Economics by Geoffrey Pilling. Published in 1987 by Croom Helm.
The Anarchist Revolution in Barcelona (and Catalonia) (1936-39): A Wikipedia History
Murray Bookchin’s The Spanish Anarchists The Heroic Years 1868–1936. Published in 2001 by AK Press.
Peter Kropotkin vs. Vladimir Lenin as Explored by Sergey V. Saytanov in the History News Network: “The Anarchist Who Stood Up to Lenin and the Bolshevik Coup of October 1917”
Inventing The Future: Postcapitalism and a World Without Work by Nick Srnicek and Alex Williams. Published in 2016 by Verso Press.
The first thinker of “Dual Power” comes not from the Boleshevik Vladimir Lenin, but a half century earlier by the anarchist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon in his book General Idea of the Revolution in the 19th Century: the important excerpt of which appears here.
Black Socialists in America – Dual Power Strategy
Cooperation Jackson - Kali Akuno on Dual Power
Bernie 2020 Platform – Corporate Accountability and Democracy:
Key Points:
Fundamentally shift the wealth of the economy back into the hands of the workers who create it.
Give workers an ownership stake in the companies they work for.
Break up corrupt corporate mergers and monopolies, including reviewing all mergers that have taken place during the Trump administration and institute new merger guidelines
Finally make corporations pay their fair share of taxes by reversing Trump’s corporate tax breaks and closing corporate tax loopholes to raise up to $3 trillion over 10-years.
Holly Otterbein in Politico: “Bernie World Descends into Disarray”
Why the Bernie Sanders Presidential Runs (in 2016 & 2020) Were the Central Glimmers of Hope in America’s Vampire-Squid-Sucking Political System:
Paul Waters-Smith in Current Affairs: “The Bernie Sanders Movement Is Achieving Things We Thought Impossible”
Ronan Burtenshaw in Jacobin: “Thank You, Bernie Sanders”
Jedediah Britten-Purdy in Jacobin: “Bernie Sanders Was Trying to Save American Democracy”
Benjamin Wallace-Wells in The New Yorker: “Alexandria-Ocasia Cortez and the Legacy of the Bernie Sanders Movement”
Charlotte Alter in Time Magazine: “'Change Is Closer Than We Think.' Inside Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's Unlikely Rise”
Eliza Relman in the Business Insider: “Bernie Sanders Won Key Endorsements from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, and Rashida Tlaib by Defending Them When Few Others Would”
Eugene Scott in The Washington Post: “Jamaal Bowman on How He Rocketed Past Engel, and How the Democratic Establishment Should Understand His Likely Victory”
Summer Balantine from Associated Press (Republished in CBSNews): “Once Homeless, Cori Bush Ousts 20-year Rep. Lacy Clay in Missouri Primary: "They Counted Us Out"
David Greenberg in The Wall Street Journal: “Socialists Are No Strangers to Congress”
Patriarchal Neoliberal Ideology:
Joseph Campbell's The Power of Myth (1988) (George Lucas’s Basis for Star Wars)
Ronald Reagan: A Wikipedia Biography
And Now for Something Different: William Kleinknecht’s The Man Who Sold the World: Ronald Reagan and the Betrayal of Main Street America. Published in 2010 by Bold Type Books.
Jordan Peterson: A Wikipedia Biography
And Now for Something Different: Nathan J. Robinson in Current Affairs: “Dear Lobsters: There Is Another Way”
Jesse's Theory of Emancipatory Struggle
Mythologies of Hierarchy
become justifications for
Relations of Dominance
which create
Systems of Oppression
maintained through
Institutions of Violence
Therefore, we must work to undue compounding layers of harm, concurrently, but in order of priority through:
Abolishing Institutions of Violence
Dismantling Systems of Oppression
Eroding Relations of Dominance
Erasing Mythologies of Hierarchy
THE FUTURE IS A MIXTAPE: THE POISON PYRAMID:
RELIGION: As Explored in Episode 001: The Desire For Certainty
CAPITALISM: As Explored in Episode 002: The Invisible Hand
CELEBRITY: As Explored in Episode 003: Star-Fuckers
During the Obama Era - There Were More African Americans in Congress and More Police Violence & Murder in Democratic Cities Than Ever Before: As Seen in Keeanga Yamahtta-Taylor’s Op-Ed in The New York Times: “The End of Black Politics”
Jesse’s Strategic Priorities for Transcending Capitalism:
The Anticapitalist Compass
Eliminate State Violence
i.e.: Defund The Police
Guarantee Social Welfare
i.e.: Unconditional Basic Income
Decommodify Life
i.e.: Cancel Rent
Democratize Society
i.e.: Money Out of Politics
Jon Huntsman and Tim Roemer in Politico Magazine: “How Money Poisons Our Politics: Our Democracy Is Starting to Look a Lot Like Oligarchy.”
An Organization That Matt Co-Founded to Beat Back Money in Politics: The 28ers.
Julia Conley in Common Dreams: “Democratic Socialist Lawmaker Persuades Fellow Denver City Council Members to End Contracts With For-Profit Prison Operators”
Abe Asher in Vice News: “No Badges, No IDs, and Rubber Bullets: How Trump’s Secret Police Are Going After Portland Protesters”
Annie Lowery in The Atlantic: The Cancel-Rent Movement
Alicia Adamczyk in CNBC: “32% of Americans Had Outstanding Housing Payments at the Beginning of August”
Kali Akuno, Co-Founder and Executive Director of Cooperation Jackson, in Roar Magazine: “The Floyd Rebellion: Pathway to a Revolution?”
Erik Olin Wright’s Three Tasks of Emancipatory Social Science