[aha] Fwd: <nettime> Debtors' of The World Unite! The Initiative to form an International Debtors' Party.

[dedalus a autistici.org]

 -------- Original Message --------
 Subject: <nettime> Debtors' of The World Unite! The Initiative to form 
 an International Debtors' Party.
 Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2011 16:08:56 +0200
 From: Dmytri Kleiner <dk at telekommunisten.net>
 To: <nettime-l at kein.org>


 Congratulations to the Pirate Party having won an astounding 8.9% in 
 the
 Berlin elections.


 As I wrote two weeks ago, this is their moment of relevance, the 
 emergence
 of Information politics as a mainstream political topic. Having 15
 Piratenpartei representatives in the local government will certainly be 
 of
 direct material benefit to activists fighting against software patents, 
 for
 network neutrality, online security and privacy, etc, and that is a
 development to be celebrated.


 Modern politics has become a politics of identities and causes. Major
 parties construct identities, these identities function as 
 Legitimization
 Brands, not so much tied to specific social outcomes, but rather to
 specific personalities, representations, framings and forms of apology.


 People vote for a Party because that's the kind of person they identify
 as: the kind of person that votes for that party and imagines 
 themselves
 having the essentialized, yet drifting, characteristics the party 
 markets
 as their image. Party membership is just another consumer identity.


 The interests of the State and it's ruling class doesn't change from
 election to election, and the elected politicians of the ruling party's 
 job
 is to represent the policies demanded by the ruling class to the people
 that support them. The election is a market survey, designed to 
 identify
 which Legitimization Brand will most effectively deliver public 
 support.


 The political policies of the major parties are formed byway of the
 campaign contributions and lobbying of the holders of the major 
 economic
 power, not by the interests of the voters whose support they deliver.


 Political resistance is limited to activist movements, which 
 occasionally
 manifest as minor parties, the Greens and more recently the Pirate 
 Party
 are such manifestations.


 As minor parities, they are not integrated into the ruling class 
 system,
 but rather represent the social power of movements around specific 
 causes.
 These parties retain relevance to the degree that they are primarily 
 the
 representatives of the activist social movements they emerged from, 
 when
 they grow beyond being minor parties, like the Greens have in Germany, 
 they
 become integrated into the ruling class, and begin representing ruling
 class interests.


 The reason this happens is that as representatives of causes, they have 
 no
 mass appeal.


 The social power they can mobilize, although often visible and noisy, 
 is
 not enough to propel them beyond the political fringes, yet maybe 
 enough to
 attract attention from the same economic powers whose contributions and
 lobbies animate the major parties, and are thereby transformed into
 Legitimization Brands, like the other major parties, trading in the 
 support
 of their now expanded constituencies so long as their legitimacy 
 survives.


 The masses are not interested in causes, at least not enough to 
 mobilize
 around them.


 And for very good reason, understanding complex causes like
 environmentalism and information politics seem complex and abstract to
 people, more concerned with their everyday lives. Activist campaigns 
 often
 focus on the misdeeds of corporations and States. Most people feel
 unqualified to comment on it, and are therefore not so compelled to try 
 to
 unravel the storms of claims and counter claims, accusations and 
 apologies,
 all the rhetoric that drives such polemics. These are not their 
 concerns,
 forming an opinion on such issues does not help in the daily challenges
 they face in their private lives. And the solutions presented are not
 clearly implied by their own conditions, thus they are happy to have 
 these
 concerned administered for them, which the Legitimizing Apparatus is 
 happy
 to do.


 What's missing from modern politics is, well... politics.


 The traditional parties formed around the emerging power of different
 economic classes. Specifically from the interests of those who derived
 their incomes from the different Factors of Production, namely Land,
 Capital, and Labour.


 Conservatives are called conservatives not because they have delicate
 sensibilities when it comes to sexuality or have regressive views of 
 gender
 and racial roles, but because they wantwd to "Conserve" the system of
 Nobility, where elite families retained power and led society. Which, 
 due
 to there superior genetic heritage, they where, aledgedly, uniquely 
 able to
 do, and as they had done for centuries.


 The primary economic power of the Conservatives come from those that
 controlled the land.


 The Liberal are called Liberalis, not because they emerged as movement 
 of
 people who believed in being a little less uptight and a little less
 xenophobic, but rather because they represented the emerging Capitalist
 class, they believed that the State, meaning at that time, the 
 Nobility,
 should let them conduct their businesses as they see fit, and not 
 intervene
 in the marke.


 The primary power of the Liberals came from those that controlled 
 capital.


 As Capitalism triumphed, and Feudalism disappeared, Liberals and
 Conservatives became not so much representatives of different classes 
 in
 conflict, but rather competing brands to market the interests of 
 Capital to
 the masses. Both parties represent only slightly differing views on how
 markets and governments aught to be run, and in whose interest.


 Labour Parties began as dissenting, activist parties, formed by groups 
 of
 political intellectuals such as the UK Fabians, and began as minor 
 parties
 that had grown out of the workers' movement.


 Yet, the workers' movement was different from the types of causes we 
 have
 seen emerge more recently.


 The workers' movement was not fuelled by intellectual appeals to 
 abstract
 technical concepts, and was not focused on the reported conduct of 
 remote
 corporations or states, but on the direct conditions and interests
 experienced by workers, and workers where legion.


 Their cause was not based on morality or belief, but on the conditions 
 of
 their daily lives. What's more, the platforms where directly implied by
 their conditions, they where not administered beliefs, but known facts.
 Workplace safety, wages, working hours and other matters of direct 
 interest
 to workers did not require subscribing to one ideology or another to
 understand.


 The workers movement, because of its class basis, did not need to rely 
 on
 campaign contributions and lobby to have power, because the workers 
 where
 the masses.


 The power of the worker's parties came from control of labour.


 However, this language of Landlord, Capitalist and Worker emerged in 
 quite
 a different era. The Power Loom was the driving force of industry, 
 Nobility
 controlled the land and the State, and being a worker in early industry 
 was
 torturous, inhumane, and importantly, most workers where 
 direct-producers.
 The value they created took the form of stocks of goods that where
 literally taken from their hand and into the possession of the 
 Capitalists,
 who became their owners and profited from their circulation, while the
 workers where left with nothing more than that which their subsistence
 demands so they could toil another day. Workers knew their class 
 interests.
 The exploitation of labour was not a theory, but a felt, daily 
 experience.
 There demands where not opinions, but terms of struggle.


 The workers' movement won many of these struggles. Working conditions 
 and
 hours where improved as a result of fierce battles between workers and
 capitalists. This began to make the demands of workers' parties less
 pressing, more marginal and abstract, while theories of value and 
 economy
 developed further, the immediacy of the issues fell away.


 More and more workers became non-direct producers, working in
 administrative or technical fields that did not directly produce stocks 
 of
 goods, appropriation of the product of the labour became not a felt and
 observed experience, but yet another theory, something about which one
 could have an opinion, but not something that was a uniting term of
 struggle.


 All the while the most oppressive and harsh conditions where relegated 
 to
 the margins of society or even to other ends of the world, with whom 
 the
 great body of workers in developed society had no relationship at all, 
 or
 if any, then as yet another cause.


 Politics has vanished and in it's place is a marketplace for
 legitimization.


 The commodity has become the voter themselves, delivered to a
 consciousness industry made up of parties, public relation firms and 
 other
 agents of economic power.


 Absent from organized opposition, Capital has reshaped society towards
 it's own interests. Where the owners of productive assets have 
 increased
 power and freedom, unchecked by any kind of political contestation, and 
 the
 masses are subjected, administered, and controlled. Workers are just
 another economic input, like energy and natural resources, who matter 
 only
 enough to ensure reliable supply. Capital is spreading poverty, social
 stratification, environmental degradation and war with impunity, 
 checked
 only by the economic and natural limits of such outcomes, and able to
 socialize or transfer the costs even when such limits are exceeded and
 catastrophe ensues.


 To make politics relevant, to challenge and contest the interests of
 Capital and to represent the interests of the masses we need workers to
 once again unite in their common interests and make their social power
 felt.


 Yet, workers' politics is now failing because workers do not identify 
 as
 workers, and thus any appeal addressed to workers is unlikely to 
 achieve
 results. As the economy has moved on from the simple model of 
 production
 that classical language was born in, so must the language of class
 politics. The workers are no longer direct witnesses to the product of
 their labour being ripped from their hands and hoarded by the 
 Capitalist.
 Many people may hate their job, or their boss, but as the production of
 value is more abstract and remote, they do not feel that their boss is
 taking anything from them, rather they feel they are being given 
 something,
 their job and their paycheque, etc. It is not in the workplace that the
 appropriation is felt, but rather after work, when they go home to pay
 their bills.


 We can't mobilize the masses as workers, but we can mobilize them as
 Debtors.


 Debt is not simply a cause to build awareness and support for, it is 
 the
 felt condition of the masses, who are struggling to pay their bills, 
 who
 are frustrated and angry and who demand representation which no 
 mainstream
 party will give them.


 The Time has come for The Debtors' Party.


 Join the initiative to found an International Debtors' Party. So far, 
 the
 resources are small, come help us build a movement.


  - Facebook group: http://bit.ly/debtorsfb


  - irc channel: #debt on irc.oftc.net


  - wiki: wiki.debtorsparty.org


 With your help, much more to  come.


 Anybody is Berlin is welcome to come to Stammtisch tonight and say hi,
 this is in no way an official meeting of the Debtors' Party, just an
 informal get together, but no doubt the topic will be present. 
 Stammtisch
 is at Cafe Buchhandlung, starting at 9pm. http://bit.ly/buchhandlung


 Debtors' of The World Unite!

-- 
 Dmyri Kleiner
 Venture Communist





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