hydrarchist writes: from Aufheben, September 2001:

Anti-Capitalism as Ideology...and as Movement?

Preface: From anti-"globalization" to opposing the war

The events of 11/9/01 occurred as we were preparing this edition of
Aufheben for printing. Naturally the development of a class opposition
to the ‘war’ has become a major concern of those who do the magazine.
With events changing from day to day, we have decided to limit our
comments here to a few updates to the Israel/Palestine article and
this preface to our article on the ‘anti-capitalist movement’.

Before the attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Centre, a great
deal of attention had been focused on the mobilizations against "globalization".
At the mobilization in Genoa, confrontations between demonstrators
and police reached a new peak of ferocity. A lot of eyes turned toward
the next big event - the Washington meetings of the World Bank and
IMF - to see where it was all going. September the 11th changed everything.
A ‘war on terrorism’ has been declared. What sort of war this will
be remains to be seen. (Colin Powell’s definition of its aims as a
prolonged campaign against those who threaten, 'America, Americans,
its allies and American interests throughout the world' actually sounds
like a description of aims of standard US foreign policy.)
Reading Indymedia as we write, what actually seems to have happened
in Washington appears to be a splitting along some of the lines of
tension that we discuss in the article below. Even before the World
Bank and IMF meetings were cancelled, the unions and NGOs withdrew
support for a demonstration, the radical liberal fraction decided
on a series of workshops on the war while only the (largely anarchist)
‘anti-capitalist convergence’ opted for turning the event into an
actual demonstration against the war.

Capitalist civilization versus...

The reinforcement of an nationalist identity, especially in the States,
has been a predictable feature of the preparation for war. However
the world bourgeoisie has naturally been attempting to justify what
it is doing in more noble terms. The Italian PM Berlusconi described
the war as one between a superior western civilization which has generated
"widespread prosperity"and "brought us democratic institutions, civil,
religious and political rights of our citizens, openness to diversity
and tolerance of everything." Other leaders, aware of its impact on
Muslim allies, criticized the statement; but this and other comments
on a "strange unanimity"between the anti-"globalization" protesters
and the terrorists expresses a dominant ideological tendency: the
equation of capitalism with civilization. With "the war on terrorism",
capitalist society vindicates itself as civilization against a barbaric
enemy.

Meaning for "anti-capitalism"?

Like the wider class struggle, the opposition that has expressed itself
at the anti-"globalization" mobilizations has to deal with the changed
political climate. An immediate impact of terrorism is to reinforce
identification with the state and the existing order. The "war mentality"
involves the strengthening of nationalist identity and the creation
of racist divisions within the proletariat. Curtailment of "civil
liberties", such as that involved in the introduction of identity
cards which might normally be resisted or refused, is legitimized
by the "terrorist threat". Whatever the level of actual military action
involved, the "war on terrorism" seems to indicate a permanent shift
to a more authoritarian use of state power on the home front (naturally
only so as to defend democracy and freedom). In conjuction with these
moves, there has also been a co-ordination of state economic measures
to soften the impact of the world recession. The idea of "globalization"
as an anonymous "economic" process in which financial and corporate
power threaten democratic "political" institutions is breaking down
before the massive wielding of political-economic power by the hegemonic
capitalist state, the USA. The common theme of "globalization" and
the common practice of Summit mobilizations can no longer unify the
way that they did. Those who have identified with these mobilizations
need to think more about what capitalism really is. But if some anti-"globalization"
misconceptions are left behind, the old dangers of anti-imperialist
and anti-American ideology open up. Anti-imperialism and anti-Americanism
are idiot forms of "anti-capitalism"- that is, they are not anti-capitalist
at all. Weak states or even non-state forces, like those organized
by the multi-millionaire Bin Laden, may be anti-imperialist and anti-American
but they are not against capitalism.

As we touch on below, the limitation of even the most radical tendencies
in the mobilizations, those who aspire to be "anti-capitalist", has
been their separation from the wider social movement that could make
such an aspiration a reality: that is, a class movement to abolish
class society. The turn from "globalization" to the war as focus of
opposition will not immediatly overcome this. The separation between
an "anti-war movement" dominated by ideals of peace and justice and
the class movements that really end wars (the strikes, mutinies and
revolutions that ended WW1 and the insubordination, fraggings and
breakdown of the American military machine that ended the Vietnam
War), mirrors the gap between the anti-"globalization" mobilizations
and a real anti-capitalist movement.

But this adventure launched by the bourgeoisie has dangers for them
as well as us. In the first place, there is a danger for the American
state of over-commitment and unrealistic expectations for a military
machine which may be more effective as a threat than in practice.
In the second place, there is a question over the extent to which
people accept the propaganda in support of the war. The nature of
the so-called "war on terrorism" forces not only "anti-capitalists"
but also the population as a whole to think about politics and the
world. The reality that the "war on terrorism" is essentially an attack
on the world working class threatens to emerge. Within and through
the apparent coalition against terrorism the competition between the
capitalist powers in the face of economic crisis is intensifying.
While at first the war can distract the class from attacks on its
living conditions - launched in an attempt to reassert conditions
for capital accumulation - the basis for a radicalization within the
class is possibly being prepared.

********************************************

A new international movement emerges?

The recent mass actions in Genoa are the latest in a series of impressive
mobilizations against "globalization".[1] The most radical elements
involved, especially here in Britain, have adopted the definition
"anti-capitalism". While the use of this term was at first somewhat
refreshing, there is no real sign that most participants' perception
of what being "anti-capitalist" means is more radical or coherent
than those - indeed the majority - who refer instead to the anti-"globalization"
or anti-"corporate" movement.

All the major transnational economic and political institutions -
the G8, World Trade Organization (WTO), World Bank, International
Monetary Fund (IMF), European Union - have been targeted by mass protests[2]
which have served to undermine their legitimacy. In defining an alternative
agenda of anti-"globalization" or "anti-capitalism", the mass mobilizations
have put the institutions on the defensive. The very violence of some
of the actions - as well as the violence of the state - has led the
mainstream media to focus on what the "anti-capitalists" have been
saying and doing, rather than on the communiqués issued by the summits
themselves, a source of considerable irritation for the politicians.
There have also been a number of more concrete effects, including
the physical prevention of WTO delegates from attending their conference
in Seattle (they will now be holding their next meeting in remote
Qatar) and the cutting short of the Prague conference of the IMF and
World Bank. The World Bank meeting due to take place in Barcelona
in 2001 was cancelled; the WTO and IMF have shortened their Washington
meeting from two weeks to two days; Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian
prime-minister, has moved a United Nations World Food Summit out of
Rome; the next G8 meeting will be in a remote location in the Rockies;
and there have even been concerns about whether a NATO defence ministers
meeting, due to take place in, should go ahead. And all this apparently
because of the protests.

The excitement of some in response to these developments is understandable,
especially given the generally weakened level of the class struggle
of the last 20 years or so. Although the usual activists and politicoes
have been participating, the mobilizations and associated meetings
have served to involve and politicize numbers of new people. Moreover,
the continuity of these mobilizations - the fact that there have been
mass mobilizations in different countries around apparently similar
aims and issues - perhaps suggests that what is happening is the emergence
of a new internationalism. Is the absence left by the collapse of
Stalinism and the retreat of social democracy now being filled by
a force which will perhaps find its expression in communism rather
than in these historic dead-ends? The self-defined ‘anti-capitalist’
element that we have witnessed at least suggests this as a possibility.

Yet one of the features of both social democracy and Stalinism which
allowed them to be an enduring form through which working class resistance
was mobilized (and recuperated) was the way they attached themselves
to everyday struggles over "bread-and-butter" issues. The party and
the trade union were organizational forms that didn't simply express
themselves on the big occasion, but, through mediating the ongoing
pumping-out of surplus-value from the workers, pervaded their mundane
existence. Some of the anti-"globalization" commentators identify
the lifeblood of the new "movement" with the various mass movements
in the southern hemisphere - most notably the Movimento Sem Terra
(the grassroots land redistribution movement) in Brazil, the Zapatistas
in Mexico and the Karnataka state farmers association (KRRS) in India.
Others have claimed for the "movement" various struggles around the
world against such neo-liberal policies as cuts in social security,
harsher labour laws and wage cuts. But while these accounts suggest
that the Summit mobilizations are just the most high-profile expression
of a worldwide day-to-day movement, in advanced capitalist countries
it certainly appears that the "movement" exists only in and around
the mass mobilizations themselves.

Some would also argue that the street protests that characterize the
"movement" against "globalization" are not on the class-terrain. Certainly,
in the UK there have been only a few links with struggles around and
against wage labour. Of course, the impulse of many taking part in
the mobilizations springs from their everyday disgust at the dull
compulsion of a world dominated by capital: a world of work, ecological
destruction, poverty etc. But the "movement" still does not exist
as an everyday effort to resist the conditions of life determined
by wage labour. In this sense, therefore, it is questionable whether
what has been happening can properly be called a movement at all,
and certainly not a movement of the class.

Contradictions in the "movement"

A further reason for denying that what has been happening constitutes
a single movement is the fact of multiple and contradictory agendas
in and around the mobilizations. Indeed, it might be said that the
Summit mobilizations are simply occasions for a number of very different
movements and tendencies each to do their own thing.

As mentioned, while many of the militants involved who have long been
against capital talk about "anti-capitalism", for most the "movement"
is just against "globalization". The emphasis on "globalization" versus
"capitalism" typically reflects profound differences of analysis,
approach and, at bottom, class position. For example, on the European
continent there are organizations like ATTAC[3] which see dialogue
with the state as one of the aims of the "movement". But there are
also a number of anarchist and similar tendencies involved in the
mass mobilizations who reject this mainstream; on at least one occasion
(notably in Barcelona) they even held a counter-counter-summit to
the counter-summit of the "official movement"!

Yet even among those involved who define what is happening - or what
should happen - as "anti-capitalist" there are acute differences.
The lack of a serious attempt to analyse what capital is allows these
differences to be glossed.

The state's selective dialogue with some of the Non-Governmental Organizations
(NGOs) involved in and around the mobilizations appears as an attempt
to capitalize on these kind of divisions. For example, Blair held
face-to-face meetings with some of the "drop the debt" campaigners.
After Genoa, some of the NGOs reciprocated by coming off the fence
to criticize the "violence" of participants at the protests.
But, of course, the very reason that some of these NGOs - and the
term covers a wide variety of organization - have been willing to
get involved in such discussions is because they share the same vision
of "development" as the directors of the IMF, World Bank and so on,
and differ only over the details. As GegenStandpunkt put it:

they reproach the IMF for having given too much and too little credit
for the Third World, for having granted credit under too tough conditions,
and for having promoted the wrong projects. They uncritically believe
that credit, if only granted in the right amounts and invested in
the right projects, could and actually would be a real means of subsistence
for the poor of this world - and not what it really is, namely money-capital
advanced in order to flow back even bigger to the lender. The right
amount that would supposedly transform the curse of indebtedness into
the blessing of anticipated growth is of course not calculated by
them.[4]

Moreover, it is not simply that many NGOs are campaigning for a more
decent capitalism; some of them are actively facilitating actually-existing
capitalist relations. NGOs are often financed not only by the state
but by the very transnational bodies some of them are protesting against.
For example, NGOs are involved in 54% of World Bank projects, mostly
in developing countries.[5] Since Seattle, some bourgeois commentators
have noted an increased effort on the part of the World Bank to develop
dialogue with, and to co-opt, NGOs, efforts which have served to mute
NGO criticisms of the World Bank. Such commentators therefore recommend
to the WTO the same strategy as a way of splitting the broad alliance
that made Seattle possible.[6]
The state grasps the "movement"

While some of us puzzle over whether or not it is properly a movement,
its targets - the G8 politicians and national hosts of the various
transnational bodies - have already decided. The generous use of tear-gas
at the Seattle anti-WTO mobilization (November 1999) was said by some
on the side of the state to be an over-reaction. But, at the Quebec
mobilization against the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (April
2001), still more gas was employed, as well as reinforced fences to
prevent a repeat of the crowd's success at Seattle in disrupting the
conference. The idea that these responses could be explained simply
in terms of the particularly violent culture of North American cops
was dispelled by the experience of the mobilizations against the World
Bank and IMF in Prague in September 2000. The Czech state used all
manner of forms of violence to those detained, including torture and
severe beatings, in order to intimidate participants. Then, at the
EU Summit in Gothenburg (June 2001), the Swedish police actually shot
people in the crowd using live ammunition. The logic of this escalation
was duly followed when the Italian police shot and killed at least
one participant at the Genoa G8 summit just a few months later.

After Gothenburg, Blair and other leaders expressed their frustration
by suggesting that the "travelling circus" of protesters should not
be allowed to cause such disruption. Hence not only has the state
response become increasingly violent, there is also talk of introducing
new legal means to prevent "known troublemakers" travelling abroad,
in the same way that legislation has been introduced and used recently
to target supposed known football hooligans.[7] There has been increased
co-operation and sharing of intelligence among police forces, and
even talk among some heads of government of creating a Europe-wide
riot police force.

Significantly, then, the state and the supranational organizations
all perceive - and are acting upon - an apparent continuity in the
mobilizations. In other words, the continuity - indeed the escalation
- in the state response to the mobilizations shows that they are treating
them as an entity: that is, as a movement which is in some sense a
threat.

But how might the mobilizations pose a threat? Most obviously, although
less interesting in itself, is the threat posed by the mobilizations
to the ability of the world leaders and global economic bodies to
hold their meetings how, when and where they choose. But, although
there has been disruption, the bourgeoisie have mostly been able to
carry on with their business: exclusion zones and mass deployments
of police have ensured this. The more interesting threat is that posed
by the mobilizations to the general climate of inevitability that
Blair and the other Western leaders have sought to cultivate in recent
years. The endless stream of "reforms" which have served to whittle
away many of the "gains" achieved through the post-war social democratic
compromise[8] have been premised upon the absence of an effective
force of opposition. The visibility and ongoing existence of anti-"globalization"
- even "anti-capitalist" - mass mobilizations could serve as such
a force of opposition. This in turn could operate to encourage a wider
climate of resistance.[9] In such a climate, resistance in other areas
begins to seem possible and may spread. A "movement" criticized for
its confused and often middle class composition and ideology could
therefore prefigure and contribute to the development of a wave of
struggles posing a genuine threat to capital's reproduction of itself.[10]

As well as treating the mobilizations as a single entity which exists
over time - as a movement - the global organizations and their state
hosts have often treated each crowd event as a single entity. While
participants themselves comment upon the sometimes acute political
differences within the physical crowd, the state appears less discriminating.
Numerous are the stories of "peaceful protesters" being attacked by
police as if they were the ones causing "violence". The brutal police
attack on the school accommodating people from Genoa Social Forum
and Indymedia, and the subsequent torture of those arrested, has been
the most high-profile example of this. However, the reasons behind
this particular attack are unclear. The attack was said by some to
be police revenge for the actions undertaken by the black bloc.[11]
This seems pretty implausible. But the police did in effect treat
the different elements at the protest as more or less interchangeable.
As such, their action at least appears to be consistent with Berlusconi's
statement that "There was no distinction between the two groups",
and his claim of ‘connivance’ between liberals and "violent" elements.[12]
Attacking such a soft target - the police were aware that the overwhelming
majority of people staying at the school were not black bloc - may
have therefore been a way of sending a warning to the rest of the
protest, from a police force which had been ordered to defend the
Summit by any means necessary.

However, the police attack might have reflected more strategic considerations.
The liberals might be seen (rightly) by the forces of the state as
providing the infrastructure for these kinds of events: they call
the demonstrations, organize and advertise them, and provide practical
support such as accommodation. Certainly, judging by the selective
nature of the searches carried out on particular groups of people
entering Italy to take part in the event, the authorities judge some
of the liberal organizing groups to be the leaders.[13] The intention
behind the attack on the school building may therefore have been to
intimidate the liberals from coming to future events, thus undermining
the organization on which the less liberal elements rely.
However, in general, when attempting to analyse this kind of incident
there is a danger of ascribing an overwhelming coherence and rationality
to the actions of the state. We may well be underestimating not only
the simple bluntness of repression as a tool, but also possible internal
divisions: for example between senior police and those on the ground;
between police and government; between elements within the government;
and so on.[14] Neither can we simply presume an unproblematic chain
of command from the G8 leaders to the Italian police, whose job on
such a presumption becomes not only guaranteeing the safety of this
Summit but also of future Summits taking place in other countries.

Yet, whatever the intentions and whatever level the decision was made
to attack those staying in the school at Genoa, a possible effect
is that at least some of those attacked - mostly liberals - will indeed
feel that providing infrastructure for Summit protests makes them
too vulnerable. The size and actions of future European Summit mobilizations
may give some indication of whether or not people have been intimidated
by the recent repression.

Some unintended consequences of state actions

Some of the state responses to the events have served to work to the
advantage of (tendencies within) the movement. In particular, one
unintended effect of the apparent lack of discrimination on the part
of the authorities hosting the various Summits has been sometimes
to create a greater unity in what have otherwise been extremely diverse
and incoherent gatherings.

For example, the enormous mobilization in Seattle was dominated by
a liberal-NVDA tendency which attempted actively to exclude more militant
actions.[15] The misery of the attempt by this dominant tendency to
define a critique of the WTO palatable to what they presumed to be
the mainstream was perfectly illustrated by the idiots standing in
front of Niketown and other shops trying to prevent black bloc people
from smashing the windows.[16] But at Quebec the actions of the police
led the non-violent sections of the crowd to see this same "violent"
black bloc as "one of us". The latter's retaliation against the police's
use of tear gas against the crowd as a whole, their keeping the police
at bay from the majority of the crowd and their attempt to breach
the fence excluding the whole crowd from the conference served to
create an enhanced sense of crowd unity and identity.[17] In this
case, "property damage" (in the form of the state's fences) and fighting
the police was widely recognized as necessary. At Genoa, again, the
non-violent element constituted the majority. But the police tactic
of batoning all and sundry, intended to disperse the crowd, backfired
when many more people got stuck in than had originally intended to
fight - including some of the liberals and non-violent types.

The "Summit-hopping" nature of many of the anti-"globalization" events
has at times obscured the level of local participation. For example,
Seattle, Quebec and Genoa were occasions for locals to act against
the cops and property. Genoa, which has a long history of resistance
to authority, witnessed various forms of active solidarity between
locals those who came just for the protest. This was despite the damage
to "their" city that so upset the leftists. For example, local people
on motorbikes sped up and down warning others about where the cops
were; some took strangers into their houses to protect them from police
baton charges; some threw water from their balconies at the cops and
gave water to drink to the protesters; and when one street was destroyed,
locals participated in the looting of shops.

Despite these kinds of examples, there has nevertheless often been
a division between "locals" and mobilization participants at a number
of the Summit locations, illustrating the point, again, that the events
typically express a separation between everyday antagonism and resistance
as "activism". Perhaps the Prague mobilization exemplifies this separation
most poignantly: among the Czechs, participation was limited to the
small activist community.

Yet it is police action, again, that has sometimes contributed to
the breaking down of this kind of separation. Mayday 2001 in London,
which was promoted as an anti-capitalist event, was pre-hyped by the
police to such a degree that otherwise "non-political" working class
youth saw it as an opportunity to have a go at property and the hated
cops[18] - much more noticeably than at Mayday 2000. At Seattle, the
extension of the police offensive beyond the designated protest area
and into residential districts brought more residents out fighting
the police alongside the protesters.

The role of the ideologues

The possible prospects of this would-be movement - its continuity,

international character and, at least for some, avowedly "anti-capitalist"
agenda - has meant that a number of different groups and tendencies
have attempted to assume some sort of hegemony. Such attempts have
all involved, first, the claim that there is indeed a movement, and
second, a particular definition of the identity of that movement which
allows those offering this definition to position themselves centrally.
This work of movement identity entrepreneurship is a work of ideology,
in that it reflects a partial viewpoint connected to their practical
experience and social perspective.
If the mobilizations are indeed to become a movement, self-criticism
is an important part of that process of becoming. A critique of the
ideologues is pressing for the practical reason that their positive
definitions of the unity of the "movement" contain an inevitable negative:
the exclusion from their definitions of those they perceive as a threat
to this definition. We now examine the approaches to the "movement"
of four tendencies involved in and around the mobilizations who have
become salient from a UK perspective: the progressive liberals, anarchists/black
bloc, traditional left (in this country the Trotskyists) and Ya Basta!
In many cases, there is an attempt by such tendencies to marginalize
certain "others" - often more militant elements. This marginalization,
moreover, isn't simply a matter of definitions but may involve concrete
exclusion and defeat. For example, both the vagueness and the conflict
involved in the mobilizations so far has enabled some otherwise "non-political"
elements to participate, as mentioned previously. Would this wider
involvement be possible if the ideologues' definitions of the ‘movement’
were more fully realized?
We acknowledge that an examination of the ideologues' accounts can't
in itself tell us much about the nature and dynamic of the "movement"
(such as it is); such an analysis also risks being limited to the
level of ideas. However, we undertake this examination not only because
it is necessary to develop some theoretical tools to fight the ideologues
and defend the more promising tendencies that they might exclude (as
well as to critique some tendencies they might include), but also
because criticizing other accounts of the movement is a necessary
step in developing our own understanding.[19]

The "movement" according to the progressive liberals

For progressive liberals involved in and around the mobilizations,
the problem is not capital as such, but what they see as the current
("neo-liberal"[20]) organization of capital, glossed by the term "globalization".
The pre-eminent liberal-progressive interpreter of the movement so
far is Naomi Klein, whose book, No Logo, is an international best-seller.
The book is promoted as a part of the "movement" yet which also speaks
to - and is a part of - "mainstream" society. Klein's apparent purchase
on what is going on lies in the fact that so many people involved
in and around the "movement" events understand it as she does: in
terms of multinational corporations (rather than capital). However,
for Klein it is not even "globalization" as such that is the problem,
but a global system "gone awry".[21]

No Logo is a work of largely impressionistic journalism in which Klein
identifies and analyses a global movement of opposition. Klein describes
the different campaigns, struggles and tendencies which she sees as
comprising this movement. These include "culture jamming",[22] McLibel,
Reclaim the Streets[23] and student campaigns against "sweated labour".
What makes these different campaigns and struggles part of a single
movement according to Klein is the fact that they are "anti-corporatist".
For Klein, what the movement is essentially mobilizing around is the
threat posed by the power of multinational corporations to state accountability
and hence citizenship.[24] Klein argues that the recognition of the
global corporate brand logo is itself the basis of this supposed global
movement; the global corporations thus create the possibility of global
(rather than merely local or national) opposition. Moreover, since
these global corporations no longer provide "their traditional role
as direct, secure employers",[25] people no longer have a reason to
be loyal to them and hence the global opposition becomes legitimized.

For Klein, the form that this "anti-corporatist" resistance takes
is primarily cultural. The "movement" is essentially just that activity
which attempts to "communicate" (through propaganda etc.) with the
forces of "globalization". This approach which privileges the "message"
over concrete activity is reflected in Klein's analysis of the political
background of the movement. For example, Klein's account of Reclaim
the Street (RTS) relies heavily on that of John Jordan, whose presentation
of RTS as art-cum-politics (and himself as an "official" spokesperson)
have not been widely accepted within RTS itself.

Interlocutors with the state?

The threat posed by progressive-liberal ideologues like Klein lies
in their legitimizing of the role of the democratic state through
linking the "movement" to mainstream politics and the state: "we"
(the super-exploited garment workers of Jakarta, "anti-corporatist"
activists, and middle class progressive liberals like Klein) "demand"
the full rights of citizenship which only a properly democratic state
can bestow, in order to protect us from the excesses of the global
corporations. If this is how "we" are united, then this must mean
the marginalizing of the most militant tendencies.[26]

The role of progressive liberal ideologues taking positions like that
of Klein is recuperative in that they present themselves as the voice
- the most articulate - of the "movement", which they can then represent
in dialogue with democratic institutions and those corporations that
come to the negotiating table. While those tendencies that accept
the leadership of liberal ideologues will moderate their actions in
the light of any such "negotiations", others will become a "hard-line
rump" against which further state repression gains greater legitimacy.

This work of exclusion is evident in the sharp distinctions Klein
makes between "protest" and "riot". On RTS: "the subtle theory of
"applying radical poetry to radical politics is getting drowned out
by the pounding beat and the mob mentality... Despite the organizers'
best efforts, RTS was spiralling into soccer hooliganism".[27] Similar
comments are made about the June 18th "Carnival against Capital" (J18).
Klein repeats the oft-heard liberal whine about "the message being
drowned out" in all the violence and damage. What they mean is their
message (which respects property as part of democracy). In fact, as
even some reformists often recognize, if there is one inevitable effect
of rioting it is to get people talking about what the rioting is about:
rioting defines agendas.[28]

If Klein engages with the most militant only at the level of their
actions (and this only in order to marginalize them) it is because
this is less threatening to her overall interpretation than to engage
with them at the level of theory. The "violent" elements she tries
to dismiss typically define themselves not as "anti-corporate" but
as "anti-capitalist", anarchist, or in many cases do not have a political
identity at all, except perhaps anti-"system".[29] To critically confront
them would mean dealing with the problem not only of capital itself
(not just "global" capital "gone awry") but also, crucially, of the
state. What is most obviously missing from Klein's analysis of the
problem of global corporations and the supposed movement against them
is an adequate grasp of the relation between the state and the forces
of "globalization". Ultimately, this would require a grasp of how
the division between "politics" and "economics" is a mystified, if
real, fragmented appearance of the capital relation. Simply put, it
is the very democratic states to which Klein appeals which have participated
in the creation of the structures of the global economy and hence
the current relative autonomy of global finance capital. The politicians
representing these democratic states have done this not because they
are corrupt, undemocratic etc., but because they are dependent on
and attempt to facilitate capital accumulation in each national territory.
To restore greater power to the state and away from global finance
capital, as the liberal-progressives wish, is to attempt to force
the state to find some other way to guarantee the conditions for the
optimum extraction of surplus-value. Free trade and protectionism
have historically each been capital's solution to the problems of
the other.

We have focused on Naomi Klein, but the other liberals take similar
positions in relation to the state and the form of resistance. People
like George Monbiot[30] (discredited years ago in the radical ecological
movement), Walden Bello and Kevin Danaher[31] all call for smaller
scale capitalism (smaller businesses that we can perhaps identify
with more and be exploited by with less resistance?) and more tax
(e.g. a Tobin tax on the movement of international finance capital).
In calling for an ‘acceptable’ capitalism with the state as the interventionist
organ of democratic control, not only do these liberals justify the
alienation that is capital, they also grasp the state incorrectly
as a neutral tool. Or, perhaps more accurately, they instinctively
understand it well - as a structure necessary to guarantee the version
of capitalism they support.

The relation of the anarchists and black bloc to the mobilizations

If the progressive liberals have been given quite considerable, favourable
coverage, the bourgeois media has also strongly associated "anarchism"
with the mobilizations. Violence at the events, or the threat of it,
generally gives a giant dose of publicity to the largely mythical
anarchist ringleaders that are deemed to be responsible. The unwillingness
of most anarchists to speak to the media only increases the interest
(as a theory of recuperation would tell you). But whatever the spectacular
dimension, it is true that anarchists of one sort or another, have
had a significant role in the genesis and development of the mobilizations.

In Britain, anarchism has been a strong influence on the RTS and direct
action scene out of which the street party at the 1998 Birmingham
G8 and the 1999 J18 riot in London's financial district emerged. The
older class struggle anarchist scene had at first largely been very
suspicious of the RTS/direct action scene for its "middle class/hippie/green"
composition, but by J18 had swallowed their objections. Elements from
this scene were largely instrumental in the 2000 and 2001 May Day
events in London. J18 was then a direct inspiration for the mobilization
for Seattle.[32] Though the organizers of Seattle were more liberal/leftist
a "soft" anarchism was present. To an extent its influence was strongest
at the level of method and technique. For example the pivotal organizing
group, the Direct Action Network (DAN), introduced what was seen as
"forms of anarchist decision making", and had many self-described
anarchists in it. A participating group, the Ruckus Society, a mobile
direct action training camp which emerged out of Earth First!, has
a similar large anarchist involvement. Against this kind of involvement,
more hardline ideological anarchists have criticized anarchists in
DAN for being mere foot soldiers in a liberal and leftist campaign.
One pamphlet[33] testifies that many anarchists were angry at the
guidelines imposed by DAN banning violence against persons and property.
Such tensions are an understandable expression of American anarchism’s
development within an individualist and unhistorical political culture.
Whereas in the UK, tendencies within anarchism towards lifestylism
have been tempered by the experience of the miners' strike, Wapping
etc., US anarchism has no such recent history.

However, one section of anarchists found through their practice a
way of making an impact on the protest at Seattle which has then become
a continuous feature in subsequent mobilizations: the black bloc.
It is anarchism’s association with this form of militancy that has
mainly defined its relation to the mobilizations against "globalization".

The riots which tore through Genoa this July engendered a backlash
against the black bloc spearheaded by Italian leftist organizations.
For its own ideological reasons, and using the death of Carlo Giuliani,
the liberal-left parts of the "movement" demonized the violent protesters
at Genoa in a big propaganda offensive within Italy.[34] This uneasily
paralleled the anger and frustration felt even by radical sections
of the crowd, both inside and outside the black bloc, with its actions.
Some of the arguments of the leftists and liberals (for example, the
idea of police infiltration of the black bloc), have put those who
previously embraced the tactic on to the defensive. It is necessary,
then, to examine the way this tactic has developed.
The problem of the black bloc at these events is the contradiction
between its existence as a tactic and as an ideological identity;
and the way that the form of the anti-"globalization" "movement" forces
these two aspects to coincide. To counter the leftist propaganda,
which portrays the black bloc as a homogenous group that can be easily
identified and marginalized (young, male, anarchist, fanatical, nihilistic),
others have emphasized its heterogeneity, fluidity and the fact that
it is first and foremost "a tactic". As such, it is claimed, it has
no ideological identity and changes for practical reasons as time
and place dictate. However, although there is an element of truth
in this (and although certain people within the black bloc see it
or wish it this way), there is a definite tendency to conflate radicality
with a "hardcore" fetishism of violence. A defining if not exclusive
feature of the black bloc that distinguishes it from simply street-fighting
at demonstrations is the existence of a set group committed to a form
of action, separate from the rest of the crowd. The black bloc seeks
to identify itself as a group of black clad militants who work together,
look out for each other, take on the cops and attack property, and
as such sees itself as the radical, autonomous wing of the protest.
In practice, the black bloc tendency does alter significantly according
to local conditions, but doesn't escape the bounds of a militant role.

Seattle: Anarchist ideology and the black bloc

A main origin of the black bloc tactic is the German autonomen movement
of the 70s and 80s, known for its highly organized and widespread
squatting scene. The autonomen were split between an anti-imperialist
tendency identifying with the Red Army Faction; and a "social revolutionary"
tendency roughly inspired by Italian autonomia. The black bloc tactic
was linked more with the anti-imperialist side, so can be connected
to its vanguardism and lack of orientation to the (German) working
class.

There have been black bloc formations inspired by the German blocs
in America over the years, but these never really made much impact,
given the enormous restrictions on demonstrations in America, and
the power of the police. However, in Seattle, the black bloc had visible
success by attacking corporate property like Starbucks and Nike. In
a communiqué some black bloc members printed to explain the tactic,
they write of their sophisticated practice as a group who escaped
serious injury by remaining constantly in motion and avoiding engagement
with the police, but present their actions against property as symbolic
- what matters is the "shattering of assumptions", the "number of
broken spells"[35]. They also affirm that their actions accord with
the wider anti-corporatism of the movement, whilst hinting that they
are against all property relations. Given the limited aims of the
protest, the pacifists they deride were probably more effective in
closing the centre down. It's not enough to make a show of violence
against the pacifists, hoping that it'll clear the bad smell of hippie
idealism, like an "exorcism".[36]To oppose hardcore militancy for
its own sake against NVDA (Non Violent Direct Action) betrays just
as much ideological obfuscation.

The Seattle black bloc seemed very much defined by its isolation from
the rest of the movement. They were few. They had to stick together
against the incomprehension of the rest of the crowd, and even to
defend themselves from the ‘peace cops’. They had to defend their
actions in the terms of the liberals. There the black bloc as tactic
was inseparable from its exclusive identity. At the same time, the
black bloc can point to the huge international impact of Seattle as
due partly to their actions.

The Seattle black bloc was later branded as "a bunch of anarchists
from Eugene who follow the primitivist John Zerzan".[37] This exaggerates
the influence of primitivism on both the black bloc and US anarchism
in general. However, the attraction of primitivism, with its anti-technology
fetishism and lack of class analysis, is an expression of the broader
lifestylist ghettoism of American anarchism. A limitation of the black
bloc in America is the extent to which it is trapped in that culture.
But of course, in the narrow confines of the anti-"globalization"
"movement", this sort of lifestylist vanguardism may seem like the
radicalism as against the liberals. It would be involvement in a class
movement that might lead the anarchists to question their separation.

The riots in Washington later that year, though they faced a much
higher degree of police repression, marked an advance in that there
was a level of collaboration between "violent" and "non-violent" protesters.
The decision not to be antagonistic amounted to an effective co-ordination
and collaboration of their different tactics, neither hindering the
other. The ideological positions of both groups thus began to loosen
into practical considerations.

Britain

While some British activists are enamoured by the black bloc and its
tactics, and have hopped merrily along to many a summit to be part
of it, the "anti- capitalist" protests in Britain - J18, Mayday 2000
and 2001 - did not have black blocs. People may mask up and dress
in black to avoid surveillance, but there is not the same segregation
of the activist scene into liberals and militants. When fighting does
occur those who take part are often not politicos at all. That such
a situation could have developed is due to the weakness of an institutional
left that could steward and self-police events. The "each to their
own" tolerance of the hippie crowd helps in its way. Nevertheless
after the surprise of J18, the limited numbers of participants has
allowed the police to swamp the subsequent events.

Prague and Quebec City

The black bloc tactic was used in Prague in September 2000, in a completely
different way to Seattle. Aware of the different tendencies that would
be present on the day, and the tensions that could arise between them,
the organizing group, Inpeg,[38] decided on a separated but concerted
effort to close down the conference. Three different routes would
be used to approach the excluded zone, each one corresponding to a
different political tendency. Everyone could stick to their chosen

grouping - "creatives" in the pink bloc,[39] Ya Basta! stunt-politicos
in the yellow bloc, the black bloc as the blue bloc - and yet could
help each other to divide police resources in a unified attack on
the actual conference, (unlike Seattle or Genoa). Some black bloc
people actually made it to the grounds of the conference centre with
the pink-and-silver march, helped by the blue bloc's flat out assault
of the police line on a different approach. The blue bloc did not
budge the line too much, but injured a lot of cops. This was the black
bloc's most focused action thus far, but some black bloc types wondered
whether it was in a sense too much so - "doesn't targeting the conference
centre suggest support for the reformist programme of the liberals?"
- as if indirectly targeting the conferences by smashing the host
city isn't part of the same thing.

Quebec in April 2001 saw the biggest amount of public support for
a black bloc action, as mentioned earlier. It was there that the bloc
as tactic, in pulling the widely unpopular fence down, really connected
with the feeling of the march, and many in the city as a whole. This
initiative of the black bloc proved a pivotal moment (bystanders joined
in after the initial attack on the fence). The bloc as an organized,
determined force was seen practically to have value even to Gandhian
peaceniks, as one testimony on Indymedia demonstrates.[40] Elderly
ladies in Quebec City were seen holding up placards saying "God bless
the kids in black!"

Genoa - The black bloc under attack

The June 2001 protests in Gothenburg against the EU summit erupted
in widespread militant black bloc rioting and saw the first shooting
of a demonstrator at these events. The main victim of the shooting,
critically ill for some weeks, was Swedish and it seems that Sweden's
anarchist scene contributed a lot of people to the bloc. At one point,
the black bloc pushed the cops into retreat (TV images showed what
almost looks like a rout), and Gothenburg saw some of the most intense
fighting with the police. Unlike with Prague, the black bloc was unpopular
with the peaceful types whose sunny party in the park was disrupted
by police charging the rioters.

In Genoa the black bloc was split up and spread over a large area,
and their dress became increasingly motley and light coloured according
to Italian conditions - i.e. heat and little camera surveillance.
Participants have argued over the composition of the militant blocs.
Some say there were many locals getting involved and that Genoa proved
to be the most socially connected of the summit protests. Others argue
that although the population was friendly and helpful in general,
most locals present at the riots were bemused onlookers who may have
helped the black bloc on occasion, but generally saw the event as
extraordinary spectacle, which in a way it is.

There were many black bloc people in Genoa from different countries,
so there could be many loosely organized blocs, but again the problems
of black bloc militancy re-appeared, which resulted in fighting between
different militant groups on the Friday. A section of the black bloc
at the joint COBAS[41] and black bloc action attacked the cops too
early in the march. The cops came in and split the crowd. The COBAS
were angry at the premature ejaculation of the black bloc. Later they
fought with the black bloc to stop it following them to their base,
effectively threatening to throw the bloc into the arms of the pursuing
police. The black bloc insisted and was eventually allowed through.
It does seem that a certain culture of European anarchism with its
obsessive fetishism of street fighting is to be seen at work in these
events. Others point out that most anarchists in the bloc were happy
to think tactically with the COBAS and that the problems were due
to the actions of a few "stupid" people, and a basic lack of organization.

On Corso Torino (site of the huge march on Saturday, broadly of the
institutional left), young anarcho-punks and others in the black bloc
that tagged the march were largely content to destroy banks and petrol-stations,
and, when this was done, attack insignificant targets like bus shelters
and traffic signs. Some started a fire right next to the petrol station
that was nestled at the bottom of a block of flats, others saw the
stupidity of this, and put the fire out. The whole emphasis with some
was to notch up amounts of targets trashed, as opposed to thinking
of more concerted efforts against the cops, which others thought more
appropriate. However, an effective barricade was built under a railway
bridge and set alight, which delayed the police advance. Most of the
time though, the police inched up gradually, attacking with tear gas,
which repeatedly panicked the crowd into retreat. Eventually the crowd
was chased out of Corso Torino with an armoured vehicle. The whole
thing was rather ritualized and boring. At the same time, another
section of the demonstration was trapped in front of the convergence
centre by police action sparked by a black bloc attack. After a bit
of fighting with the remaining black bloc types, the police advanced
in a vicious attack consisting of vast quantities of tear gas and
armoured car charges against the crowd, the effect of which was compounded
by the actions of Rifondazione members linking arms to prevent people
from escaping. It was a frightening rout and some people were surprised
that no one died.

Many were angry and dismayed that no concerted response could be made
to answer the death of Giuliani the day before. Without a strong,
rooted movement, the rioters were impotent before the state's killing
of one of their numbers - most people left Genoa that same evening.

It has to be said that nothing much else could be done. Most of the
bloc was not equipped with good gas masks or weapons, and so to retreat
and spread out from the police advance causing havoc as it went was
its best option. In that sense, Genoa was also the black bloc's greatest
success given the enormous amount of property damage done, (over 30
banks destroyed), and the wide spread of the riots over the city.
If the authorities manage to defend the conference successfully, as
in Genoa, the threat from the casseurs[42] still remains. The spread
to other targets in itself can be seen as a positive move away from
the movement's identification of capital with a few greedy individuals
conspiring behind the fence. But again, it's a generalization severely
limited by the form of the movement as it stands "you do useless symbolic
street theatre outside the gates of the conference, we do lots and
lots of, you know, "concretely symbolic" smashing of many manifestations
of capital" - i.e. praxis is conflated with shattering glass.

But we cannot simply attribute the shortcomings of the events in Genoa
to the ideology of the militants. On the one hand, people come in
from the outside to each event with their ideological baggage. On
the other, it is the limitation of the movement that prevents the
moment of truth in this militancy from realizing itself as part of
a real movement against capital.

Encouragingly, in post Genoa discussions, we can see that many who
identify with the black bloc have come to an understanding of its
limitations after its success and failure at Genoa.[43]
To express its militancy and avoid a losing confrontation with the
state the black bloc tends to become a sort of roving, footloose band
of casseurs (and a large part of its success has been just that).
In doing this, though, its actions become isolated from the immediate
aims of the mobilization, whilst not connecting with a broader social
movement which might make its militancy useful (or irrelevant!). As
such its options are to explain militant action in a way that accords
with the basic precepts of liberal-leftist anti-"globalization" ideology
(lobbying with molotov cocktails), or to trumpet them as practical,
autonomous actions against state and capital (a positive dis-alignment
with the mainstream of the movement as far as it goes). However, while
it helps the individual’s sense of identity, this doesn't hold much
water practically. In the long run, without a wider social movement
to make it meaningful, such practice can only be mere "symbolism",
"exorcism".

A further complication in the dynamic of the anti-"globalization"
mobilizations is that objectively it is the militancy of the casseurs
that have created the real problem for the authorities. The capitalist
institutions under attack can quite successfully barricade themselves
in, but it is not acceptable to the state that the black bloc reduce
the whole city to rubble outside, stealing the agenda in the media
as well with its violence.

Notes to Part 1

[1] Our intention here is not to deal with theories of "globalization"
but rather with the contradictions of the mobilizations themselves.
While this fashionable term is used by everyone as if they know what
it means, if one turns to the academic and journalistic scribblings
about it, then one finds no agreement on what exactly it is. The use
of "globalization" as if it is unproblematic and common sense is a
sign of the grip of ideology on the mobilizations. The question of
whether one should embrace or reject globalization, with its focus
on capital as circulation and finance, precisely avoids the real question
of how we transcend the capitalist mode of production.

[2] For some, particularly those involved in the UK events coming
out of the anti-roads and direct action movement, the emphasis is
on "direct action" rather than the ritualistic banner-waving and speeches
normally associated with "protest". However, while direct action in
the past (e.g. as associated with such groups as the IWW) had the

distinct meaning of direct appropriation or blockage of capitalist
reproduction, the distinction between protest and direct action today
is not always so clear-cut. Moreover, while squatting to prevent road-building,
the taking of a street for our parties and the bricking (and bricking
up) of City offices - actions associated with the recent (pre-)history
of UK "anti-capitalism" - might be argued to be direct action (in
that in each case we take from capital without asking), much of the
activity taking place at most of the anti-"globalization" Summit events
has taken the form of ritualistic marches, banner-waving and demands.

[3] ATTAC, the Association for a Taxation of Financial Transactions
and for Assistance to Citizens, is a French pressure group claiming
a number of affiliated organizations and some 35,000 individual members.
As the name suggests, it concentrates on lobbying the French government
for a tax on the international movement of money (Tobin tax) - something
which that government is now considering. ATTAC's leading figures
include Susan George (already well-known for her books on the relation
between "First World" corporate wealth and "Third World" poverty),
Christophe Aguiton (leftist trade unionist formerly associated with
the Euromarch network) and José Bové (McDonalds-trashing farmer),
all of whom have been active in denouncing "violent" participants
at the mobilizations.

[4] Seattle, Melbourne, Prague: Global action against the phantom
known as "Globalization", GegenStandpunkt, 2001. http://www.gegenstandpunkt.com/english/anti-global .html.
This interesting critique is limited by treating the "movement" as
a unity in which the statements of the anti-"globalization" liberals
stand for the whole.

[5] "The aid game", Guardian, 24th July 2001, p. 17.

[6] "Mr Wolfensohn [head of the World Bank] has built alliances
with everyone, from religious groups to environmentalists. His efforts
have diluted the strength of the "mobilization networks" and increased
the power of the technical NGOs [which specialize in providing information
and analysis] (for it is mostly these that the Bank has co-opted).
From environmental policy to debt relief, NGOs are at the centre of
World Bank policy. Often they determine it... [The WTO does not] disburse
money for projects, making it harder to co-opt NGOs. But it could
still try to weaken the broad coalition that attacked it in Seattle
by reaching out to the mainstream and technical NGOs." ("The non governmental
order", The Economist, 9th December 1999).

[7] In fact, the German government has actually used its own football
hooligan laws to prevent protesters travelling across international
borders.

[8] On the topic of the problematic ‘gains’ of the post-war social
democratic compromise, see our articles: "Social democracy: No future?"
(Aufheben #7, Autumn 1998); "Unemployed recalcitrance and welfare
restructuring in the UK today" (Stop the Clock: Critiques of the New
Social Workhouse (Summer 2000); "Re-imposition of work in Britain
and the "social Europe" "(Aufheben #8, Autumn 1999).

[9] This was our argument for the radical if not revolutionary
potential of the anti-roads movement: "...the key to the political
significance of the No M11 campaign lies less in the immediate aims
of stopping this one road and in the immediate costs incurred to capital
and the state (although these are great achievements and great encouragement
to others), and more in our creation of a climate of autonomy, disobedience
and resistance." ("The politics of anti-road struggle and the struggles
of anti-road politics: The case of the No M11 Link Road Campaign",
In DiY Culture: Party & Protest in Nineties Britain, ed. George McKay;
Verso, 1998, p. 107).

[10] See our Editorial in Aufheben #9, Autumn 2000.

[11] For example in the Guardian (24th July 2001) and in YearZero #6.

[12] Guardian, 23rd July 2001.

[13] For example, through their co-operation with the Greek cops,
the Italian authorities knew which, among all the Greek coaches and
other vehicles entering the country, contained the liberals who had
been involved in some of the co-ordinating activities beforehand.
They detained, searched and expelled this group while most of the
street-fighting anarchists got through.

[14] This acknowledgement of divisions within the state - of internal
conflict within and between the political organs of capital - is based
on our understanding of capital as a unity based on difference. We
do not accept, and nor are we referring here, to the liberal argument
in support of the liberal-democratic tendencies in the state and against
fascist elements - as in the suggestion that the expunging of the
right-wing in the police moves us towards a more rational, fairer
state.

[15] See We Are Winning! The Battle of Seattle - A Personal Account
(Riot Tourists, 2000). There is a parallel with the dominant tendencies
in the 1980s anti-nuclear movement; see Strange Victories by Midnight
Notes (Elephant Editions, 1985).

[16] As we have witnessed, there is nothing more violent than
the non-violent type resisting those who don't share their morality!

[17] See "The bonding properties of tear gas" by Naomi Klein (http://www.nologo.org)
and ‘A turning point for activists’ by Stuart Laidlaw.

[18] This was recognized in distorted form in "Mayday! Mayday!",
the NoLogo-influenced left-liberal documentary shown on Channel 4,
which offered the following rhetorical question on one of the Mayday
2001 participants who didn't fit the purely humorous and harmless
image of the event being projected by these journalists: ‘Would a
true anti-capitalist turn up for Mayday in a Nike jacket?’

[19] See also our articles on the development and potential of
the anti-roads and Criminal Justice Bill (CJB) movements: "Auto-Struggles:
The developing war against the road monster" (Aufheben #3, Summer
1994); "Kill or chill? Analysis of the opposition to the Criminal
Justice Bill’ (Aufheben #4, Summer 1995); "The politics of anti-road
struggle and the struggles of anti-road politics: The case of the
No M11 Link Road Campaign", op. cit.

[20] "'Neo-liberal' ideology is an expression of the freedom of
global finance capital. In response to the class struggles of the
60s and 70s and the difficulties in maintaining accumulation, states
took actions (e.g., by abandoning Bretton Woods) which in effect created
the conditions for the development of the relative autonomy of global
finance capital. Through taking this more autonomous form, capital
could outflank areas of working class strength. A situation was created
in which governments of nation states could claim that they had no
freedom of manoeuvre but rather had to compete in terms of labour
flexibility, social costs etc. to maintain competitiveness and attract
investment." ("Unemployed recalcitrance and welfare restructuring
in the UK today", op. cit., p. 15).

[21] No Logo, p. 441.

[22] This refers to what has also been called "subvertising":
the practice of reworking advertising billboards.

[23] As in the case of a number of other commentators, Klein's
account of RTS is littered with errors.

[24] No Logo, p. xxi.

[25] No Logo, p. 441.

[26] But see Klein's interesting article on Quebec, "The bonding
properties of tear gas", op. cit.

[27] No Logo, p. 318.

[28] Perhaps at least until it becomes ritualized.

[29] The latter's spontaneous "anti-capitalist" action is, for
the middle class ideologues like Klein, no more than "soccer hooliganism".

[30] This green journalist developed his career on the back of
the direct action scene before partially disowning it when it ceased
to accept his advice on non-violence and respect for property. The
title of his book, The Captive State: The Corporate Take-Over of Britain,
perhaps says it all about his nationalist, petty-bourgeois, statist
politics.

continue to Part Two