"Suburbia or Global Communities?
And the Next Mutiny on the Bounty"
By P.M.
[A longer article, presented in three parts.]
"I was more worried about myself then than I was at any other time of my life... You’ve fallen into something that’s so ugly and horrible. Instead of My Drugs Hell, it’s My Suburban Hell.That’s not being flippant. One thing I really fear is living that whole kind of home/garden/kids kind of suburban existence. DIY and all that. I’d much rather be selling my arse in King’s Cross than living that kind of life. It’s sick and sordid that people have set such limitations on themselves, thinking that’s all they’ll get.“ (Irvine Welsh, author of Trainspotting, about his life after his drug-addiction)
"Paradise has been found.“ Bruce Steinberg, of Merrill Lynch, about the US. (Tages-Anzeiger 1-26-2002)
Suburban Utopia
At this moment everyone on the planet is watching the people of the USA and wondering how they are reacting to the present global crisis. For the most "dangerous" working class on this planet is the US working class. When its compliance with capital ends, US capital will collapse and thereafter, like dominoes, all the secondary capitals. Some of those lesser proletariates seem ready for such an eventuality, are even prepairing for the "day after“, expecting the big holiday. The Germans and the French are rehearsing work-free lifestyles for five to six weeks every summer, the Japanese have only been pretending to be part of the game for 100 years and seem to be about to quit now. The Italians, Spanish, Russians are ready to let go. The Chinese, the Indians and Argentinians are desperately looking for a way out. Many others never really tried.
But the US working class is not only potentially dangerous to world capital. If it keeps supporting it actively or passively, there can’t be an end to the world’s turmoil, destruction and misery. The key historic question of our age is therefore: why is the US working class not letting go? Why are they still putting up with capital’s arrogance and constant demands? What have they got to lose?
Try this: The US proletariate is living in a kind of continental "Truman Show“, in a consumers‘ paradise. They’re already living in near-paradise, in a state of bliss, in a virtual utopia, beyond, in non-capitalism, in suburbia. And they seem to love it. They’re disgustingly happy – or : they think they are. (Which is even worse.) As long as suburbia can exist or as long as there is at least a believable pretense or realistic hope for it to come true, there can be no change on this planet, just the defence of the status quo with all means. Nobody wants to lose paradise, especially not to crazy terrorists who are willing to die in order to get there.