Copenhagen, Wednesday, February 16, 7-10 pm
Politicians, ordinary citizens and some activists like to talk about “us” and “our nation”. They talk about the unquestionable benefit of community and the necessity to make sacrifices for it. Using the nation as justification seems to be so self-evident that almost every political tendency does it: bankers are critiqued for putting themselves before the community, students remind the government how useful they are for the nation and right-wingers have a very principal suspicion that everybody else aims to undermine the nation.
We want to discuss how, in a society where the pursuit of one’s own self-interest is a necessity and encouraged, people galore arrive at the conclusion that their nation deserves appreciation and sacrifice. We also want to discuss why this nationalistic conclusion is a bad one.
The talk and discussion will be held in English.
Organised by: Arbejde og Rigdom, Copenhagen
The 2010 movement against education cuts in Britain presents itself as composed of at least two tendencies. On the one hand, there are voices which seem to soberly defend their quality of life against an attack by the government, making little attempt to disguise their materialism for something else.1 Confronted with the prospect of a £9,000 annual tuition fee they seem to realise that they cannot afford it or would rather spend it on something else if possible. They seem to realise that their own interest in education is secondary to other goals in this society and express anger about it; however powerless their actions might seem.
On the other hand, there are voices which appear to be very concerned about education cuts damaging society, transparent and fair implementation of cuts and not to ‘obstruct students or staff in any way’.2 They advise the government that it is making a mistake3, that education is a right4 and that `our’ problems could be solved without overly harming higher education – for instance by taxing tax-avoiding companies. Taken seriously, it is not their blunt materialist interest which drives these protesters to the streets. It is rather their concern for the values of this society in which their access to education is denied more and more, i.e. which values their interests little.5
Obviously, the two approaches have a common denominator. Both tendencies are the first big response to the cuts across the board in the UK. In fact, the general public and the authorities seem genuinely surprised by the advent of this movement, puzzled about how strongly people are opposing these cuts on the streets.6 The Metropolitan Police even predicts a new era of riots after a fire extinguisher didn’t hit anybody7 and an old police van was rattled. What a large part of the published opinion in this country finds puzzling is the extent to which people expressed their anger openly about a restriction of their basic life needs.
Immediately, these cuts mean that people have less money in their pockets and thus have less access to the stuff they need. But these cuts also mean that more people will find it harder to even pursue a university degree. This limits their potential earnings in the future – however uncertain those are to begin with. A university degree allows one to earn a decent salary if and only if one finds an employer in need for one’s services after graduation.8 The possible material perks of education can only be collected if that education benefits a company’s business. This is a first hint that the state does not (and did not in the past) provide education as a service to its citizens but for a different purpose.
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London, 12. – 13.3.2011
While we do not consider everything Karl Marx wrote to be correct, we learned a lot from his main work Capital Volumes 1-3. We hold that the critique of political economy still hits its mark today. Yet, Capital is no easy book to read. Especially the first six chapters present a frustrating hurdle to many readers, such that Karl Marx suggested that some readers should simply skip these. On the contrary, we hold that many Marxists' (e.g., Marxist-Leninists) failure to grasp the concepts presented in the first few chapters, such as value, exchange and abstract labour, causes them to end up with inadequate theories about contemporary capitalism. Thus, at this two-day seminar, we want to provide a thorough entry to this work, starting from Chapter 1.
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Historical materialism is an essential feature not only of the Marxism of the traditional workers movement but also of Marxist-Leninist ideas. A critique of historical materialism explains some of the dreadful aspects of the practice of Marxism-Leninism in power (“actually existing socialism”) and thus is part of the answer to the question of how their project turned out to be such a failure from the perspective of the abolition of exploitation and domination. Read the rest of this entry »
The Socialist Party of Great Britain notes: “What distinguishes us, amongst those who want a classless, stateless, wageless, moneyless society based on the common ownership and democratic control of the means of life, is our view that parliament can, and should, be used in the course of establishing such a socialist society.”
We claim that the argument put forward in the SPGB pamphlet “What’s wrong with using parliament?” is based on false premises. Among these is the premise that “democracy and freedom” are not realised in this society and standing in elections is a way to call this bluff. On the contrary, we claim that freedom and democracy are not weapons of criticism but means to justify subjection and poverty.
The SPGB argument for their strategy rests on the assertion that whoever controls parliament controls state power, that if parliament was seized the legitimacy of the socialist parliamentary majority (backed by a majority desire for socialism) would allow it to abolish the state and private property. We claim that this assertion is based on a misunderstanding of how the democratic state is constituted: The first and foremost principle of the democratic state is its monopoly on violence unchallenged by anybody, not even its own parliament.
Furthermore, the SPGB aims to make use of parliament’s legitimacy and the “socially-sanctioned physical force” by the state in order to abolish exploitation. We want to show that this legitimacy of the state’s power is something worth criticising instead of seizing.
We will discuss our critique of the SPGB position at their West London Branch meeting which is open to everyone: all welcome to participate in the debate.
See also the announcement by the SPGB.
The worker’s movement usually considered antisemitism to be the socialism of the fool or a shortened critique of capitalism. On the contrary, we hold that antisemitism is a critique from a nationalist point of view. Antisemitism therefore is not “too short”, but is at odds with a reasonable critique of capitalist social relations.
Antisemites blame Jews for phenomena they consider to be destructive. For instance, they hold that national policies were not made in the service of the citizens, but bent according to “the Jewish will”. With respect to the economy, especially in finance, Jews are denounced with profiteering more than others and doing so without “honest labour” – again to the detriment of everyone else. Furthermore, Jews are accused of dominating culture with “their money” and seducing people into disregarding proper art in favour of “superficial art”.
We want to discuss how these accusations relate to the capitalist world organised in nation states. We want to show that antisemitism is not half a critique, but an ideology hostile towards the abolition of exploitation and domination.
Freedom enjoys widespread appreciation across political spectra and in particular in the anarchist movement. In this workshop we want to discuss whether a critique of bourgeois society in the name of freedom misses the target. For this, we want to discuss what freedom means in this society and what rights such as freedom of speech and inviolability of the free will have to do with political domination and economic exploitation.
This workshop is part of the Anarchist Bookfair 2010.
When we declare our opposition to capital and nation, quite a few people would agree with the later part if we appended an ‘-ism’. Being a ‘nationalist’ is not a badge of honour these days, instead it is reserved for the types of the British National Party. A proper, democratic citizen does not consider himself a nationalist, instead the much more noble label ‘patriot’ is preferred. A patriot, so the popular idea, does not look down on other nations, but ‘instead’ and ‘only’ loves his own. This love expresses itself in many different ways:
- Cheering for the English, Welsh, Scottish or British team in whatever sport is on telly goes without question. That ‘we’ win if they win is for some reason understood.1
- “British jobs for British workers” – Gordon Brown shared appreciation for this with some of the Lindsey wildcat strikers. The disagreement a liberal would register with this is that these sentiments harm ‘our’ economy.
- ‘We’ are all in this financial crisis together and need to pull in our belt. In the interest of ‘our’ economy we will have to take a hit. Although, some of those ‘greedy bankers’ might have to give up some of their bonuses as well in times of crisis for the sake of ‘us’ all.
- ‘Our’ troops deserve ‘our’ support in Afghanistan, one might disagree with the government but this does not alienate oneself from the troops who risk their lives in order to serve ‘us’.
- Some go even as far as asking how many immigrants ‘our’ culture and country can take.
While these statements deal with quite different topics, they all have two features in common. First, they are based on some common definition of who ‘we’ are, i.e. who belongs to this group and who does not: “Nation denotes a people who are believed to or deemed to share common customs, origins, and history” (Wikipedia). Some people also mention language. Second, these statements also imply some content that follows from this group membership (an entitlement for preferred treatment for instance, or a collective worth sacrificing for). The justifications of the groups in question and the demands made in the name of these groups is what we call nationalism.
In the first part of this article we will consider the various reasons being put forward to justify the nation. Some of them are clearly unfashionable these days and thus it might seem somewhat tedious and unnecessary to engage on this level with them. However, these justifications are not as obsolete as one might hope and furthermore have an implicit existence in citizenship law.
In the second part of this article we will explain why and how people are subordinated under the modern nation. We will also give reasons why the ideology of the national collective is so successful – and why in fact all the above mentioned examples of ‘patriotism’ are an expression of the same partisanship for one’s nation. Even if we accept the common separation between patriotism and nationalism, we note that the love towards one’s ‘own’ nation is the prerequisite for nationalists to look down on others. It is their positive judgement about ‘their’ nation which allows them to pass a negative on others. While not every ’patriot’ must make the transition, appreciation for one nation is the requirement for the nationalist disapproval of others. In any case, we critique nationalism for its love towards a country. Thus, the proposed division between patriotism and nationalism plays no role for our critique.
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We released the second issue of kittens – the English speaking journal of Junge Linke gegen Kapital und Nation. It is available online (kittens-01-web) and around London. Read the rest of this entry »
7pm, Conway Hall (Club Room) 25 Red Lion Square, London WC1R 4RL
Critique of nationalism is nothing unheard of on the Left and among Marxists and Anarchists. However, for many radical critics of the nation, it is merely a smoke screen that distracts the working class from its own interests. We argue that this theory does not capture the essence of nationalism and fails to explain why it is so appealing to so many people. On the contrary, we will argue that the process of people (as citizens) learning to appreciate the nation-state is based on their private interests (as bourgeois) – and therefore how the material basis of a capitalist society invites people to make the national cause their personal cause. All this does not diminish the fact that nationalism is an ideology of fundamental sacrifice and that the abolishment of capitalism must not be international but anti-national. The reality of the nation calls for its abolishment not its acceptance.
This, we would like to discuss. All welcome.
