[p2p-research] recommended video by zizek

Mon Jul 12 07:55:14 CEST 2010

most of the speakers specificially disavow such romantic yearning for a
perfect future, and speak of the actual movement to create non-commodiized
social relations, here and now ... this is something that I presume most
people sympathetic to peer to peer are doing ... while the success of this
is historically mitigated, the refusal to see humans as only commodified
social relations and the continued practice of commoning, is really what
sustains civilisations, which would collapse without it ..

romanticism, or 'positive hope' or 'false utopian expectations', are not
characteristic of one particular side, since 1989 they were most prominently
characteristic of the so-called free-market right, which so spectacularly
failed in 2008,

at this stage, the left has a much firmer grasp of 'negativity', i.e. social
and environmental externalities, costs and dangers, than anyone in the grasp
of elite politics, free market absollutism, enterpreneurial romanticism, or
transhumanist technological determinism, all dreaming for magical solutions
that will wipe way all the real problems humanity is facing at this stage

what is the left really about, in its core, is expanding the field of
opportunity to all, and the democratized choice of any policy which affects
any individual, while the right hope that the free rein to the elite,
restricting decision-making to moneyed interests, and letting the top 1%
 grab the lion's share of the social product, will magically and
romantically 'trickle down' ..

hoping that one day you will read evidence-based literature such as

- the spirit level,
http://p2pfoundation.net/Why_Greater_Equality_Makes_Societies_Stronger and
http://p2pfoundation.net/Just_Give_Money_to_the_Poor

what they show is that while neoliberalism has dramatically restricted post
1973 growth levels, most of the countries with high growth rates, such as
Brazil, adopted more equitable social policies ...

I think a possible exception to this might be China, though your colleague
Jan Niederveen Peterse calls it a 'social capitalism' as well, but is is the
one BRIC country where social equality decreased ... but frankly would you
want to live in a FOXCONN compound ..?

On Mon, Jul 12, 2010 at 7:14 AM, Daniel Araya <levelsixmedia at hotmail.com>wrote:

> I will maintain the romantic fiction that communism remains to be fully
> actualized somewhere somehow in spite of half a century of failed attempts
> across the planet if you'd like Michel ;)
>
> (I just prefer science fiction to romantic fiction myself. Never been a fan
> of Rousseau...)
>
> D
>
> ------------------------------
> Date: Sun, 11 Jul 2010 19:50:14 +0700
>
> From: michelsub2004 at gmail.com
> To: p2presearch at listcultures.org
> Subject: Re: [p2p-research] recommended video by zizek
>
>
> hi daniel,
>
> let's not have this discussion stalinist totalitarianism = communism, you
> should know better ... I'm assuming that your studies did include a minimum
> of political theory ?
>
> your example is about just the opposite of what callinicos, himself a
> trotskyist, would mean under communism ..
>
> Michel
>
>
>
>
> On Sun, Jul 11, 2010 at 7:37 PM, Daniel Araya <levelsixmedia at hotmail.com>wrote:
>
> It strikes me as funny that Callinicos seeks the museum of Capitalism in a
> Communist era when it would seem to work the other way: Take a trip to Burma
> or Cuba or North Korea and you find the living museums of communism in the
> era of global capitalism...
>
> 'So often the vocabulary of the previous wave of emancipation is taken as
> the standard for the next – as if all subsequent waves of emancipation
> should carry the banner of Voltaire and Diderot, of Marx or Che Guevara.
> As if secularism should be the touchstone for all newcomers to the
> gate – emancipation frozen in time, gilded, decorated and elevated on
> a pedestal, such as French laiciteì'.
>
> D
>
> ------------------------------
> Date: Sun, 11 Jul 2010 11:41:43 +0700
> From: michelsub2004 at gmail.com
> To: p2presearch at listcultures.org
> CC: david at bollier.org; ronfeldt at mac.com; Silke.Helfrich at gmx.de
> Subject: [p2p-research] recommended video by zizek
>
>
>
> http://versouk.wordpress.com/2010/07/07/idea-of-communism-callinicos-zizek-holloway-at-marxism/
>
> this video is really worth viewing and listening to, in order to have an
> idea of left thinking today ...
>
> alex callinicos presents the more traditional view, but zizek really rocks
> here, and if his nervous mannerisms irk you, just close your eyes
>
> both speakers confront the idea of the commons, talk about recent events in
> China, and much more,
>
> didn't get myself yet to the third speaker, john holloway ..
>
> Michel
>
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