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24 October 2009

Don't worry about the economy, we don't need it

"The writer, when he is also an artist, is someone who admits what others don't dare reveal."
-- Elia Kazan

Don't worry about the economy, we don't need it. A statement that is at once bold, brave and easily dismissed as foolish, but it's a sentence that encapsulates as succinctly as possible something that desperately needs saying.
"Give me control of a nation's money and I care not who makes her laws."

-- Mayer Amschel Rothschild (1744 -1812)
Godfather of the Rothschild Banking Cartel
in 'The Creature from Jekyll Island', p. 218
Most of us, most of the time, have no need or want whatsoever for the financial economy that exists today; that is - a systemic legacy of historical ownership, control and operation. In fact, if anything, the financial economy is a shackle and a hindrance to more people, more of the time, than it is of any tangible benefit. Which is just as it has been intended by that class of people who champion their private property, profit and capital over the interests of the very people that wittingly or unwittingly facilitate their privilege. But still, don't worry about the economy, we don't need it.

What we do need however is a coherent way of understanding the essential nature of the permanent crisis of Capitalism and its economy, complete with an understanding of how the murderous U-SUK alliance Imperialism we see in the Middle-East and elsewhere is Capitalism in its most barbarous form. We need a correct understanding to ensure that this is the last ever crisis of Capitalism that anyone has to endure and, equally as crucially, to collectively plan, organise and establish new ways for how 6 billion-and-counting human beings go about co-existing with each other on the blue-green planet that hosts us.


An accurate and insightful understanding of what the system of Capitalism under which we live is, how it operates, and what the function of the State is inside the system of Capitalist operation, would include an understanding of how the State has established and maintained for itself a monopoly on the 'legitimate' use of violence against everything, which it deploys via bodies of armed men in defence of the minority interests of private property, capital, capitalists and capitalism. Private property is theft from and an affront to the rest of humanity and the capital is a historical, fictional legacy controlled by a handful people who manage the fiction to best suit the needs of themselves and their class; it is these things that the State, for all its pretence otherwise, exists to protect. Which, in the 21st century information age, is a somewhat backward and regressive basis for anything and this is the crux of the issue: the State's role as actor and enforcer in defence of private property and private capital, while keeping empty a million houses from those with no homes or health, and families unable to feed, clothe and educate their children, because 4 million people live under institutionalised and enforced poverty.
"The state, then, has not existed from all eternity. There have been societies that did without it, that had no idea of the state and state power. At a certain stage of economic development, which was necessarily bound up with the split of society into classes, the state became a necessity owing to this split. We are now rapidly approaching a stage in the development of production at which the existence of these classes not only will have ceased to be a necessity, but will become a positive hindrance to production. They will fall as inevitably as they arose at an earlier stage. Along with them the state will inevitably fall. Society, which will reorganise production on the basis of a free and equal association of the producers, will put the whole machinery of state where it will then belong: into the museum of antiquities, by the side of the spinning wheel and the bronze axe."

-- Friedrich Engels
from "The Origin of Family, Private Property and State" (1884)
Thankfully, outside the bounds of the public school theatrics of parliamentary politics and debate and mostly also outside of the bounds of mainstream media debate (with one or two notable exceptions like the discussion on Newsnight by middle-class pundits of impending "class warfare") people are beginning to explore what lies at the core of the system that enforces certain material conditions of existence. Better yet, they are beginning to explore solutions.

Todd Chretien on Lenin's "State and Revolution"


The State and Revolution, by Vladimir Il'ich Lenin


Since the snappily titled credit-crunch and the despotic actions of States around the world to sustain at any cost to workers the banking infrastructure and the workings of the financial markets of Capitalism the statement, "Don't worry about the economy, we don't need it" rings more true now than at any time before in history. And, while it is possible that some might label the statement "Don't worry about the economy, we don't need it" as the wild imaginings and inventions of an idiot, a 'conspiracy theorist', an Anarchist or a Marxist, or any other ad hominem 'insult' du jour -- as undoubtedly some will loudly decry it, and good luck to them all for their time is nearly up - the closing words of this article are given to a man of mental faculty, standing and repute beyond reproach:
Private capital tends to become concentrated in few hands, partly because of competition among the capitalists, and partly because technological development and the increasing division of labor encourage the formation of larger units of production at the expense of smaller ones. The result of these developments is an oligarchy of private capital the enormous power of which cannot be effectively checked even by a democratically organized political society. This is true since the members of legislative bodies are selected by political parties, largely financed or otherwise influenced by private capitalists who, for all practical purposes, separate the electorate from the legislature. The consequence is that the representatives of the people do not in fact sufficiently protect the interests of the underprivileged sections of the population. Moreover, under existing conditions, private capitalists inevitably control, directly or indirectly, the main sources of information (press, radio, education). It is thus extremely difficult, and indeed in most cases quite impossible, for the individual citizen to come to objective conclusions and to make intelligent use of his political rights.


18 comments:

McGonagall said...

Great post - give me more.

The Antagonist said...

Thank you. Let's see if/when/how any discussions of the subject matter progress.

There are numerous related articles that are all works in progress, but stopping what start out as simple posts to make simple points descending into 10,000 word essays on the state of everything is proving to be problematic, what with everything being connected an' all.

I've invested in a tomato timer, produced for free, on a free development environment, despite the old economy.

The future output of this blog may in part be an indicator of the efficacy of this new strategy, or any others that might get tried, but I digress slightly....

Anonymous said...

Cool - I hadn't thought about it like that before.

Anonymous said...

Is this the alternative? If so, you're more clueless than I thought. Get a job.

paul said...

Not sure I'd take HUAC snitch kazan's thoughts too seriously, or his films, apart from ' A face in the crowd'

The Antagonist said...

It was a bit touch and go as to whether the quote was going to make it in to the published piece. But the writing/art/truth gist won through, even though its source was a sell-out snitch bastard.

/makes mental note to avoid such dilemmas in future

The Antagonist said...

Get a job.

Funnily enough, it is precisely the fantastical joyousness of all of Capitalism's raft of wonderful and precious automaton jobs - and the demands, terms and conditions imposed by them in spite of revolutionary developments in technologies and abilities with the potential to liberate one and all - that set me thinking in the first place.

The Antagonist said...

@paul - and thanks for the quote.

Adrian Peirson said...

I have a Video of the Money scam on my Site, quite amazing to realize that the Bank of England is NOT the Bank of England but a Private company run for Profit.
As such, we have not ever had true Capitalism and we are in this mess because Parliament has failed to uphold our Laws of NOT commiting fraud.
The current situation was entirely engineered and we are in some sort of hideous Endgame from which few of us will survive.

Treanor News Website

The Antagonist said...

Lloyds and RBS given a further £40bn by taxpayers - Telegraph

Only £40bn? Give 'em another £4,000,000bn plucked out of bankers' black holes, it'll only take Miss Jones a second to type all the zeroes and that will make it 'real'.

Please sir, can I have some more of this wonderful invented economy we must all serve?

Rent your clothes, eat less meat, welcome to austerity Britain.

Anonymous said...

Welcome back to the game Ant!

Don't worry about the economy, we don't need it [foolish statement]. A statement that is at once bold, brave and easily dismissed as foolish [yes], but it's a sentence that encapsulates as succinctly as possible something that desperately needs saying [that you are a complete fool].

So this is it. The non-economy. I prefer my insult du jour to be accurate and bang on target, so can you confirm that it is Anarcho-syndicalism we are opting for here, and not the rather more drastic doctrine of Anarcho-primitivism? I'm afraid I can't work it out, because your only (vague) proposal is that we need to "collectively plan, organise and establish new ways for how 6 billion-and-counting human beings go about co-existing with each other on the blue-green planet that hosts us". Come on V, let's have your cards on the table. Pasting out chunks of Engels, Lenin and Einstein won't fool all your readers into thinking you're in possession of an argument. And that little association with the artist in the opening quotation nearly made me wretch.

Just out of interest, how will all these "revolutionary developments in technologies and abilities" enable us not to work in the proposed non-economy?

P.S.
I particularly enjoyed how you made the claim that "the State has established and maintained for itself a monopoly on the 'legitimate' use of violence against everything", before attempting to substantiate the claim by linking to an article reporting on the deployment of 18 armed police in Brixton, Haringey and Tottenham. It's that kind of scrutiny of the mainstream media that's made your blog a firm favourite of mine, Ant.

Anonymous said...

Bank gave RBS and HBOS 'secret' £62bn loan http://bit.ly/6FnwyL

debt said...

The current situation was entirely engineered and we are in some sort of hideous Endgame from which few of us will survive.
thanks for sharing :)

The Antagonist said...

You read it here first. Reason.... beats The Onion off the blocks:

U.S. Economy Grinds To Halt As Nation Realizes Money Just A Symbolic, Mutually Shared Illusion
February 16, 2010 | Issue 46•07

WASHINGTON—The U.S. economy ceased to function this week after unexpected existential remarks by Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke shocked Americans into realizing that money is, in fact, just a meaningless and intangible social construct.

Anonymous said...

"The future output of this blog may in part be an indicator of the efficacy of this new strategy"

I take it it didn't work then.

Still waiting for the altenative, Ant. Any news?

Anonymous said...

nice romantic view of doom and gloom you have there!

The reality is that what you define as capitalism, isn't capitalism as it is described in theory. The problem is all these any competitive measures put into place by governments and their buddies.

Surprisingly, capitalism as you have it here is practically the same as communism was in practice, so what are you moaning about?

Is it just that you are not in a position to take advantage of the situation?

Personally, I am a strong supporter of the free market, but we've not seen one of those around here for a long time!

Anonymous said...

Good site, but...

If only you realised that the left isn't the solution then you have what is required to go very far indeed.

The Antagonist said...

We're all familiar with the good-cop/bad-cop routine, but the opposing parts are usually played by different people.

Were the same person to adopt both roles, Anonymous James, one might begin to suspect some sort of personality disorder.