What constitutes effective anti-capitalist struggle? While this essay does not pretend to offer a definitive answer to this question, nor advocate a supposedly “correct” vision of how to proceed, it does offer a provocation. Essentially, this essay engages in a thought experiment that posits the following: The only truly effective tactical orientation must be one that is consciously focused on the systemic imperative of capital accumulation, seeking to purposely disrupt the various circuits of capital through direct engagement while simultaneously seeking to erode profitability and growth through strategic withdrawal.
By concentrating squarely on the domain of capital, I am advocating for looking at the targets and goals of direct actions through a very particular “window.” The term “window” is meant to evoke the notion of a conceptual bracketing of real-world phenomena into manageable parts for the purposes of analysis. Any particular window provides a unique perspective onto the totality, and each perspective reveals its own level of truth. However, there is an implicit processes of holding constant whatever may be revealed by looking through a different window. Therefore, no one window can provide total truth, and we will always have to strive toward a synthesis of many different perspectives.
The perspective adopted here obviously privileges the sphere of capital, what one might refer to as the systemic sphere, exhibiting that the need for ongoing capital accumulation and expansion is integral to the system. It does not deny that the political state is another aspect of the totality, and one that interacts in countless ways with the sphere of capital. There is, in fact, a necessary codependence between them, and one within which we cannot help but to exist and with which we cannot help but to contend. However, it ultimately recognizes the power of commodity imposition through the capital-labor social relation as fundamental, and one in which the current state is in no position to overturn.
The term circuits, of course, refers to Marx’s own formulation, most commonly represented as: M-C(MP+LP)…P…C’-M’ where M represents money used as capital; C refers to the commodities bought for the purposes of production, i.e. means of production (MP) and labor power (LP); P refers to the production process itself; C’ signifies the new commodity that emerges from the process of production that has now been imbued with surplus value; and M’ represents the realization of profit through the sale of the newly produced commodity.
We all know of course that value and surplus value are produced in many ways outside of traditional factory production, so often P does not result in something that emerges off of an assembly line. It can perhaps be someone answering a telephone in a call center, or someone delivering a package. Nonetheless, what this formula properly displays is that there is a necessary sequence of events that must occur in order for capital accumulation to successfully take place, and thus for the entire system to function properly. Also, most importantly for our purposes, it displays that there are many moments within and throughout this process that are susceptible to disruption.
Thus, this essay posits that if the potential barriers throughout the circuits of capital are the source of its weakness, then anti-capitalist strategy should involve a purposeful attempt to exploit these weaknesses in order to bring about systemic change, regardless of what may be happening in the political sphere. I suggest that we should conceptualize a spectrum of tactics that aim to actually challenge capital directly while also realistically working toward constructing non-capitalist forms of daily life (which is a challenge to capital in itself), rather than focusing on agents of the state. We can stake out two extremes of this tactical spectrum as they would exist in their purest forms, disregarding any complications that might arise in their pursuit.
At one end of the spectrum we have tactics that we could label as Passive/Creative. The goal here would be to focus our efforts toward the creation of spaces of relative autonomy from capitalist markets and logic. This represents an attempt to extricate ourselves from the systemic imperatives of accumulation and expansion through the construction of non-capitalist circuits of production, distribution, exchange, consumption, and waste. It encompasses actual living conditions rather than moments of conflict. It is not only a different conceptualization of everyday life, but is also attempting to actualize the theory of a post-capitalist world. Thus, tactics at this end of the spectrum encompass attempts to produce and reproduce daily existence based on collectively-determined metrics of need satisfaction rather than capitalist notions of value.
For example, one of the primary goals and achievements of primitive accumulation was to divorce human beings from direct access to the means of subsistence. While it may not sound sexy or exciting, one of the key elements of effective anti-capitalist struggle and the creation of postcapitalist autonomy must be regaining direct control of the production of sustenance, as the concept of self-sustainability is diametrically opposed to constant capitalist expansion. However, there are in fact already existing examples of passive tactics here in Exarcheia such as ADYE (the selforganized medical center), Parko Navarino, Skoros, the time bank, not to mention the various squats dedicated to housing refugees. All of these examples are providing necessities outside of the logic of capitalist expansion.
The power of passive tactics is that they remain within the rule of law while not participating in the market and enriching the capitalist. They are not necessarily noticeable or newsworthy, but are rather a surreptitious way of eroding profitability. At the other end of the spectrum we have tactics that we could label as Assertive/Destructive. In contrast to Passive/Creative, these tactics have nothing to do with directly sustaining and reproducing daily life. Assertive/Destructive tactics seek to engage in purposeful acts of subversion that form blockages and disrupt the continuity of flow within and between the circuits of capital. Assertive tactics aim to purposely invoke the crisis tendencies inherent in capitalist accumulation. Any given target would be susceptible in its own unique fashion.
Ultimately, the execution of assertive tactics can only exist in specific moments, and will almost certainly cross the line into illegality, thus knowingly inviting state repression. Questions practitioners might ask are: How can we purposely affect the ability of money capital to purchase the forces of production in the first place? How can we inhibit the ability of extraction of raw materials or their transport to spaces of production? How can we prevent successful production from actually taken place? How can we prevent the finished commodities from making it to the market successfully?
The two most obvious assertive tactics, perhaps, would be attacking the various forms of technology used throughout the accumulation process and the blocking of supply routes. Thus, tactics would include the sabotage of technologies and processes of extraction, production, purchasing, trading, transportation of raw materials and finished commodities, etc. Additionally, finance capital permeates every circuit to varying degrees and is perhaps most unique to current times give the increased financialization of accumulation. In addition to cyber attacks, properly organized mass defaults could be most destabilizing.
At this point a significant distinction must be made clear between the above suggestion to directly attack capital on one hand, and, on the other, that of attacking agents of the state. Assertive tactics are only directly attacking capital if they are sabotaging the circuits, increasing turnover time, affecting profitability or commodification of daily life, etc. Otherwise, they are purely political and do not directly affect the capitalist social relation. A purely political approach is focused on aspects of the capitalist state, which acts as a buffer between the juridically free individual and the capitalist owners of the means of production, representing and perpetuating class interests as a barrier to effective control of means of production.
This is not to dismiss such actions as meaningless. Far from it! For example, the actions that regularly take place in Exarcheia against agents of the state are incredibly important in carving out and maintaining a space of relative autonomy as well as raising revolutionary consciousness. They may not be directly affecting the capitalist social relation in the way set out above, but they provide the space within which to carry out creative tactics and plan destructive ones. However, I constructed a framework at the beginning of this essay that I am trying to stick to. I am looking through a particular window that gives me a particular vantage point that is not a view of the totality. Thus, to reiterate, I am not suggesting that the tactics put forward here as specifically anti-capitalist are the only important ones, only that they require a strategically targeted conceptualization and execution.
Nonetheless, these two tactical extremes are clearly problematic. The sort of pure island of self-sustainable autonomy completely divorced from market mechanisms cannot possibly exist in the real world as of yet, just as, practically speaking, many forms of large-scale direct sabotage would simply invite immediate state repression. Thus it is true that, in the first instance, we are still bound to the capitalist law of value in many of our interactions, just as in the first instance we are still bound to existing laws which can be enforced rather capriciously.
However, the first instance will not be the last, and social formations are fluid and amenable to change. The need to contend with capitalist notions of value on the world stage should not preclude more localized attempts toward post-capitalist autonomy through the creation of alternative autopoietic circuits, just as the ubiquity of capitalist social relations should not foreclose careful thought about the most effective ways to circumvent the state and disrupt capital directly. The two tactical extremes are not contradictory, but rather complementary. Both are necessary in order to advance a post-capitalist trajectory. We must execute a dialectically oriented strategy that simultaneously constructs while it also dismantles.
Thus, when looking through this particular window, the question we ask becomes: How can we build an organized and united movement (or movement of movements) that can encompass collective efforts toward noncapitalist production and reproduction based on principles of mutual aid and cooperation while also simultaneously engaging in active class struggle that sabotages the circuits of capital accumulation? Coming up with concrete and viable answers to this question is the first step. The next step is to look through a different window to reveal the complications.
p30-35, March 2017