Right now we’re seeing a crisis of both circulation and labor power, as well as a crisis of the accumulation of difference that scaffolds capitalist production.
I think we’re in a labor power crisis they’re not letting on to directly. I’ve gotten like 5 different recruitment emails, I’m seeing “no one wants to work” articles all over the place, everyone I know’s been able to find a better job, and I’m hearing stories of mass quitting in response to the end of telecommuting.
I think that people aren’t working for a couple reasons. One is that a lot of our economy was held up by elderly people who couldn’t afford to retire, and chronically stressed poor people who are now dead.
The other is that the people who can afford not to work are quitting to look for jobs that let them telecommute or won’t have the same crunch conditions a lot of jobs imposed in response to covid.
The last is that eviction moratoriums have a lot of poor people quitting their jobs because they have guaranteed housing.
The result is a crisis of capital’s reproduction from lack of labor power. If you were ever thinking about going on strike, asking for a raise or finding a new job, now’s the time. They’re keeping this on the DL because workers who know their power use it.
This is also a circulation crisis because just in time production relies on every part of the supply chain working as intended. If any one part breaks from increased demand or reduced labor power, the whole thing works less well. It’s also a circulation crisis because unemployed people have time to riot, and we’ve seen another round of BLM protests, and what do they do? They block traffic, loot stores, and prevent policemen from enforcing the commodity form, all of which contribute to a circulation crisis.
We’re also seeing a crisis of the reproduction of difference. BLM is challenging the racial order, the proliferation of queer teens are challenging the gender and sexual order, and poverty induced group housing is challenging the nuclear family. There are still significant heirarchies of difference scaffolding capitalism, but they’re seeing significant attacks.
I think the emphasis Biden’s placing on policing and security is a preparation of counter revolution in the event that the dispossessed classes should take advantage of this triple crisis to implement social change as they did in the 14th, 19th and 20th centuries. The media’s focus on the circulation crisis over the labor power crisis is so they don’t encourage worker action. When they do cover the labor power crisis, it’s “people don’t want to work” and not “labor is growing in power comparative to capital.”
This is some good ass analysis and I 100% agree. There is something very off about this moment, things have normalized a little too much too quickly. I hadn’t even thought to consider the proactive role of the bourgeoisie media in actively suppressing the organic fermentation of class consciousness and labor power. :sad Gramsci:
I have a comrade in Florida and they tell me that they have literally just shut off the unemployment spigot to try and force people back to work and it seems to be working somewhat. But for anyone interested, google “Florida DEO office” and read the 1500+ negative reviews of people who are being starved out of their homes. The cruelty is breathtaking but it speaks to the bind that the neoliberal establishment is in.
They don’t have any tools left to compel people back to work that don’t give up their true right wing nature and reveal that there is truly no difference between them and the republicans ideologically. In fact it’s worse for them to unleash these cruel devices on people because they’ve invested all this political capital into being seen as the more “humane” face of capital. They do not have options except to put people through the meat grinder after spending 4 years talking about how horrible it is that Trump just puts people through the meat grinder.
I agree 100% that they are preparing for counter revolution. It’s terrifying but it’s the best explanation I’ve heard yet for why Biden is being allowed to continue his lifelong pattern of growing and bolstering the police state. They can smell there own blood in the water and so no one is going to take the political risk to push back on that, even ostensible “progressives”. Plus they’ve already laid the groundwork for why they can’t “defund the police” by barely winning the presidential election and the georgia runoffs.
Good ass post comrade
I just went out for the first time since the pandemic and decided to test the waters. I basically always talk about organizing and try to help people understand their labor power when I go out (usually service dives). Before the pandemic i’d usually find like 3 or 4 people per night that even knew what a union was, the other day I had 15 people all express vociforous interest in radical action and unionization. This is in a town with no union presence. There’s two small one shop unions that just got charterd from IWW a few months ago but that’s it.
Not only did I get that many, but I also had people who were doing what I was doing totally separately. It literally felt like the light switch had been flipped on and instead of discussing what a union is and why we should have one, we were discussing how we should form one and what we should do with it…
What we see as taking action against a potential revolution is not a cognizant coordinated effort directly against it, though. Those powers don’t really meet up to coordinate such things, not directly (edit:or at least, they don’t do so yet. The Western public’s mindset is still under their yoke). They think in terms of “stability” and maintaining their rate of profit throughout these crises, which as you mention brings up these contradictions that can’t be resolved cleanly with their tools of preference. We vs. they essentially speak different languages, but the shared medium of communication is material conditions and political fights (political defined broadly).
They don’t have any tools left to compel people back to work that don’t give up their true right wing nature and reveal that there is truly no difference between them and the republicans ideologically. In fact it’s worse for them to unleash these cruel devices on people because they’ve invested all this political capital into being seen as the more “humane” face of capital. They do not have options except to put people through the meat grinder after spending 4 years talking about how horrible it is that Trump just puts people through the meat grinder.
Do they even need to maintain the facade? It seems that no matter how much imperialism and neoliberalism democrats do, libs still think of them as the good party who you absolutely must support at all times because republicans are worse.
Good question, I think the democrats feel the need to maintain that facade. Whether it actually is convincing to anyone but those who are already fully bought in on the Democratic Party is another question. I think to the extent it is useful, it’s useful for convincing a very small sliver of voters A la the wealthy suburban districts that allowed Biden to just barely squeak in a victory. Things like Kamalas Guatemala comments could create a lot of cognitive dissonance for those voters and that’s why they’ve been happy to throw her under the bus even though she’s theoretically the heir apparent. But that’s just my read on it.
