[comments in this entry are part of a process of working through this problem. They are as such experiments and therefore provisional. This means they will most likely change as understanding grows and deepens]

In this place where the old left continues to break the lines of struggle to bow to the alter of the organized industrial worker, it is important to note how work has/is changing. This thing affective labour is important in all this. I have always found this to be difficult concept. But I think it means something like work that produces affect. This is usually linked to the way in which emotions are generated by the performance of tasks. Last night I went into the quickly expanding chain of Nandos with a friend. Nando’s is one of the few successful fast food multinationals locally grown and their success has been determined not only by it ability to make chicken but the extent to which it understood the organization of work and creation of value within this economy. Standing to the side of the counter as we waited for our number to be called, my friend pointed an odd piece of paper facing the people who take orders. It read: “{smile} Hi, my name is {your name} welcome to Nandos what do you crave”. The media campaign that accompanies this chicken chain boasts that Nandos will satisfy your craving. How does this labour invest value in the chicken. It has no effect, on the size or taste of the chicken. It attempts to produce an affect that is associated with the chicken, perhaps outwardly expressed as a smile in relation to the word crave. This is comparable to the work of a comedian. In fact comedy is becoming more common in other forms of labour generally. Recently I flew Kulula-dot-com, a small new airline which has managed to survive in spite of the general crises in this industry. On their plane their staff use comedy in their flight announcements. This labour of the stewards attempts to enrich the flight – in the form of a service – to enrich the value of the flight. The way Kulula competes with the bigger airlines is by charging for on flight drinks and extra’s. But it seems that they also extract more ‘value adding’ labour from their in-flight crew to compensate for the lack of material value in the form of commodities (your drinks) provided by the airline. The skills for this kind of work are also different. They require a particular character, personality and arguably investment in the dominant social order. The kinds of knowledge’s and experience that are valorized are also markedly different. Simply it can be said that the comedy of the airline crew and the speech given by Nando’s counter staff add value to the respective commodities that are associated with them. This component of their labour is immaterial, adds value to the product without being directly associated with the mechanics of producing the commodity. It is labour whose only aim is the production of a specific affect that is value. Now why should this change the way we understand the proletariat. Ask any post graduate sociology student and they will tell you that this kind of immaterial labour has always been part of the circulation of commodities. However what makes our current period so interesting is the manner in which the circulation of commodities comes to be defined by the hegemony of immaterial labour of which affective labour is one component. So we have to explain immaterial labour more generally and how the hegemony of immaterial labour poses a challenge to the traditional working class solidarity project.

Recently the editor of the M&G wrote a really damaging critique of new South African social movements. The piece was vicious and full of the nationalist politics that has quickly filled the vacuum of the departure of the liberal humanist politics that determined much of middle class South Africa’s opposition to apartheid. We wrote a really good response to her, but in the end it was limited because the nation still figured as the organizing principle of the article. Simply we were trying to make and win the debate on terms set by nationalist politics. We cannot win this debate unless we sacrifice our communism to the vacant stagist politics of the older left in which nationalist politics is a necessary point on the way to socialism. I may have dropped this philosophically while i was a student but like so many activists in the postcolonial world letting it go completely is strategically difficult and often means being confined to an even smaller political cell.

A friend of mine recently mused that although our politics was extremely radical and necessary at the local level, and the global level, when we look at it from the perspective of the nation it can be reactionary. I agree with this. But what does it mean? Should I, as Negri and Hardt (see their magna carter shit on this site) suggest, resolve to form an alliance with power in my own country so that we can deal with the monarch in the form of the US and hope Empire is better? Or do we go on struggling at every point where power renews its attack on autonomy? Any help on this problem is welcome?

yuzde bir yuzde iki. kelimeler harflerin yanyana dizilmesi. mana geberdi.

Capitalism As Terrorism And The World Anarchic Movement

The absence of courage needs organization. The world anarchic movement in its embryo. Network of publications + bookstores + anarchist households + squats ≠ style anarchism. Subculture = rituals + symbols of rebellion ≠ Internet > fashion anarchism – eccentric post-modern philosophers + punks + black block + class war and class peace – the anti-globalization movement and professors of all sorts, affinity, etc,

1) Alienation and moderation of the well to do anarchists of the western world. 2) The poor anarchists impossible conditioning. 3) The role of computers in anarchic compensation and reformism.

We have nothing to loose but the terror and hidden chains of capitalism.

1) The terror of the state and its laws. 2) The terror of capitalist economy. 3) The terror of class, order and psychiatry.

a) Academic terrorism. b) Military & police terrorism. c) Juridical terrorism. d) Bureaucratic terrorism. e) Ideological terrorism.

A – State terrorism equal justice. B – Group / individual terrorism equal terrorism. C - The terror of politicians and scientists. D – The eco-terror of capitalist industrialists and technologists. E – The terror of education, authority and organization.

Capitalism is permanent war and terrorism, permanent exploitation and devastation all over the world. All this armament business is made and produced solely to kill and with its aid rule the planet.

1 – The terror of the media and entertainment. 2 - The terror of work and sport. 3 – The terror of the family and the foreigner. 4 –The terror of the rich against the poor. 5 – The new terror of the new world order.

Genuine anarchists are here to stay whilst capitalists their years are numbered, they are living on borrowed time now. Capitalism is bad for the rest of humanity, a disaster of colossal proportion; capitalism is irreversible infinite damage. Most people suffer terribly under capitalism, masses of impoverished people, masses of poor and billions of sufferings. Anarchists will prevail while capitalist will vanish forever from humanity but without forgetting their years of terror-profit reign. Capitalism means 6-million rich/ruler compare to 6-billion poor and often hungry. How many poor people can become rich under capitalism, very few and why, because of laws that protects the rich hegemony. Anarchists are the natural representatives of humanity whilst capitalists represent only selfishness, lust and greed. They call it ambition and motivation but in reality it means profiteering and exploiting the people and the planet. Anarchists will show the way out of this capitalist mess, guide the way to a better and materialistically free world whilst capitalists destroy all of us and themselves and the whole world. The empire must fall and with it goes political economy. Does life has to be like this, all against all always, unless one quickly finds a common terroristic enemy. Can you really live happily and freely under contemporary conditions? Can you achieve worthwhile pleasure and creativity in this survival of the fittest hysteria by wasting our lives on the pursuit of an illusionary wealth and power? The capitalist desperate need for a permanent accumulation is a compensation for the loss of real self worth and being good with the people. Was the need for survival created by the ruling minority to keep us dependent upon them and enslaved. Well, time has changed but the capitalist system remains and the question is for how long it is going to spend gasping its last breath. I hope to see it end and disappear in my lifetime. Then and there the anarchic era begins and the new humanity starts its anarcho-creative liberation. When capitalism starts to loose it always resorts to terrorism as a last resort. All the capitalists of the world, beside their lust for money and power, have no real and genuine pleasures or happiness. People hate the rich because the majority of the rich are mean and nasty. Then rich are unhappy because the majority of the population despises them; politicians and business bosses have a similar fate. They are incapable of loving and therefore never receive love even from their families. Thus they bye their affections with property, money and commodity. We know everything about them and they know little about us, how intentionally lucky. We know how they live and on what the spend their money and about their low life of course. We know how they feel about the world and the people and how they relate to one another, we also know exactly how the rich mind works, why they think what they think, naturally very bad thoughts and the outcome is always tragic and unnecessary bloody. We know how they see and treat the rest of the world, with a big stick and a small carrot but we also know what anarchists can finally achieve in the coming anarcho-revolutionary future, which means now and after.

Democratic terrorism