Free Soviets
02-04-2004, 23:24
a short bit of an article in the new issue of harbringer, available through http://www.crimethinc.com or http://www.infoshop.org/inews/stories.php?story=04/04/01/0290679
Déclassé war!
dropouts cutting class: exiting the economy as a strategy for reclaiming your life and saving the world
“If I am captured I will continue to resist by all means available. I will make every effort to escape and to aid others to escape. I will accept neither parole nor special favors from the enemy.”
-Article 3, U.S. Military Code of Conduct
Déclassé: (adj. or n.) having lost class or status in society
De-class: (v.) to reject one’s social and economic role
...
Make no mistake about it—in a system that runs on exploitation, desertion and refusal are essential to any effective resistance, are indeed the essence of resistance. Whether domination and submission or cooperation and consensus triumph as the predominant social forces is decided every day by the activities people participate in. Most people don’t much like pollution, warfare, or brainwashing, but are too busy selling their labor to manufacturers, warmongers, and advertising agencies to do anything about them. If we are to put an end to these, there is no substitute for taking our lives and assets out of their hands, and out of the cycles of contention of which their power is but a symptom.
The Disaster is not just the work of an elite few. Every class is complicit in maintaining it: the bosses’ management would be nothing without the workers’ labor, and even the unemployed do their part by staying out of the way. We all have to stop playing our roles, whatever they may be. This will take different forms for different individuals, according to the classes they are escaping and the details of their lives. It could mean quitting work completely: cutting your commodity consumption down to the bare minimum, exploring what resources are available in abundance outside the exchange economy, and staking everything on finding another way to live. Alternatively, it could mean turning your job against capitalism: surreptitiously redirecting resources from the company to the community, or sabotaging from the inside. As no employer will ever pay you the full value of your labor, nor can playing by the rules in even the most civic-minded profession ever counteract the total impact of the system in general, you should never take a job without having some trick up your sleeve to even the scales. And if you have been thrown aside by the economy entirely, de-classing might mean taking advantage of having nothing to lose to make your poverty cost the ones who are counting on you to give up—or finding a way to convey how things look from where you are to people in very different social positions. Whatever it takes, no more business as usual.
Whereas merely individualist efforts towards workless living can remain within the territory of hedonism, a collective struggle for freedom from wage slavery amounts to civil war. Such a struggle requires that we build massive support networks and connections between disparate social circles. There are already individuals and groups from many different demographics out of work, or at least disillusioned with it; they must discover what they have to share with one another, and how to do so. This will demand a ruthless clarity from each of us about what our personal advantages are and how they can be applied for the benefit of all. Really de-classing yourself does not mean cashing in your privileges, but contesting them and privilege in general by putting them at the disposal of those who have less or different privileges.
This is the opposite of the charity usually practiced by the bourgeoisie, which reinforces deeper inequalities than the superficial ones it addresses: in offering handouts without actually correcting disparities in means and status, would-be do-gooders only send the message that not only are they harder working and thus wealthier than the unfortunates they assist, they are also morally superior to them. Children of the middle class, if they would establish solidarity with those of other classes, must actually live as they do, facing the same challenges; you can only make common cause in a common context.
Déclassé war manifests a working model of the world we fight for and dream of. Those who would otherwise be segregated from each other by class can forge mutually beneficial relationships in which each provides the resources to which the others have been denied access. Historically, the most revolutionary situations have resulted from alliances between refugees of different classes, who met outside the walls in the course of their struggles for freedom. Arming the homeless with the means of the bourgeois and the ex-bourgeois with street knowledge, bringing together migrant workers, temp slaves, hobos, unemployed philosophers, and infuriated accountants in a class to end all classes and a war to end all wars, we can give capitalism a real run for its money.
The time is ripe for a new resistance. As manufacturing jobs disappear overseas, this nation is shifting from a production-oriented economy to a service-oriented one. With this shift comes increased job insecurity, more frequent relocation of jobs and workers alike, and the total demoralization and atomization of the workforce. Whether or not the old class-based organizing strategies were ever effective, they are less and less so today. Our jobs were once the one thing we all had in common, and therefore the best site for organizing opposition; our labor is still the foundation of the economy, but as jobs no longer provide us with a reliable foundation for our own lives, let alone for organizing, we must come up with a strategy that solves the challenges this instability poses and takes advantage of it to build momentum towards a complete transformation of life. Déclassé war is just that strategy.
Antivocation provocation by Average Guy Fawkes and Citizen Caine, CrimethInc. Labor Union of the Unemployed Local 47. If this sounds good in theory but you can’t imagine how to go about it in practice, we can provide a wide variety of concrete testimonials through any of the various CrimethInc. addresses. As for the admittedly cursory analysis of class and declassing, we’re confident you can work out the subtleties yourself.
Out of Order—Sorry for the Inconvenience!
We are not merchandise or mercenaries. We are not products that sell themselves. We cannot be bought or leased—we are already self-possessed.
What child earnestly dreams of growing up to be a grill cook, a popcorn vendor? What young heart yearns to manage advertising accounts or supervise fellow “team members” at a corporate supermarket? We are dropping out because the market offers us no wealth we can recognize. Digital video discs? We’re sick of watching actors, we want adventures of our own. Political parties, legislative solutions? We want, for once, the experience of using our own power, representing ourselves. Tell us we need more education, we’ll laugh—we know there isn’t room for all of us at the top, and we’re starting to question whether we want to be there, anyway. Tell us we need better work ethics, prescription drugs, career counseling, psychiatric care, perhaps a summer on the student hostel circuit, we’ll jeer—we know, finally, that the problem is not us. We are through with symptomatic treatment, blaming the victim. You always told us if we lost our jobs, it would be the end of the world—sounds like it’s worth a shot.
Déclassé war!
dropouts cutting class: exiting the economy as a strategy for reclaiming your life and saving the world
“If I am captured I will continue to resist by all means available. I will make every effort to escape and to aid others to escape. I will accept neither parole nor special favors from the enemy.”
-Article 3, U.S. Military Code of Conduct
Déclassé: (adj. or n.) having lost class or status in society
De-class: (v.) to reject one’s social and economic role
...
Make no mistake about it—in a system that runs on exploitation, desertion and refusal are essential to any effective resistance, are indeed the essence of resistance. Whether domination and submission or cooperation and consensus triumph as the predominant social forces is decided every day by the activities people participate in. Most people don’t much like pollution, warfare, or brainwashing, but are too busy selling their labor to manufacturers, warmongers, and advertising agencies to do anything about them. If we are to put an end to these, there is no substitute for taking our lives and assets out of their hands, and out of the cycles of contention of which their power is but a symptom.
The Disaster is not just the work of an elite few. Every class is complicit in maintaining it: the bosses’ management would be nothing without the workers’ labor, and even the unemployed do their part by staying out of the way. We all have to stop playing our roles, whatever they may be. This will take different forms for different individuals, according to the classes they are escaping and the details of their lives. It could mean quitting work completely: cutting your commodity consumption down to the bare minimum, exploring what resources are available in abundance outside the exchange economy, and staking everything on finding another way to live. Alternatively, it could mean turning your job against capitalism: surreptitiously redirecting resources from the company to the community, or sabotaging from the inside. As no employer will ever pay you the full value of your labor, nor can playing by the rules in even the most civic-minded profession ever counteract the total impact of the system in general, you should never take a job without having some trick up your sleeve to even the scales. And if you have been thrown aside by the economy entirely, de-classing might mean taking advantage of having nothing to lose to make your poverty cost the ones who are counting on you to give up—or finding a way to convey how things look from where you are to people in very different social positions. Whatever it takes, no more business as usual.
Whereas merely individualist efforts towards workless living can remain within the territory of hedonism, a collective struggle for freedom from wage slavery amounts to civil war. Such a struggle requires that we build massive support networks and connections between disparate social circles. There are already individuals and groups from many different demographics out of work, or at least disillusioned with it; they must discover what they have to share with one another, and how to do so. This will demand a ruthless clarity from each of us about what our personal advantages are and how they can be applied for the benefit of all. Really de-classing yourself does not mean cashing in your privileges, but contesting them and privilege in general by putting them at the disposal of those who have less or different privileges.
This is the opposite of the charity usually practiced by the bourgeoisie, which reinforces deeper inequalities than the superficial ones it addresses: in offering handouts without actually correcting disparities in means and status, would-be do-gooders only send the message that not only are they harder working and thus wealthier than the unfortunates they assist, they are also morally superior to them. Children of the middle class, if they would establish solidarity with those of other classes, must actually live as they do, facing the same challenges; you can only make common cause in a common context.
Déclassé war manifests a working model of the world we fight for and dream of. Those who would otherwise be segregated from each other by class can forge mutually beneficial relationships in which each provides the resources to which the others have been denied access. Historically, the most revolutionary situations have resulted from alliances between refugees of different classes, who met outside the walls in the course of their struggles for freedom. Arming the homeless with the means of the bourgeois and the ex-bourgeois with street knowledge, bringing together migrant workers, temp slaves, hobos, unemployed philosophers, and infuriated accountants in a class to end all classes and a war to end all wars, we can give capitalism a real run for its money.
The time is ripe for a new resistance. As manufacturing jobs disappear overseas, this nation is shifting from a production-oriented economy to a service-oriented one. With this shift comes increased job insecurity, more frequent relocation of jobs and workers alike, and the total demoralization and atomization of the workforce. Whether or not the old class-based organizing strategies were ever effective, they are less and less so today. Our jobs were once the one thing we all had in common, and therefore the best site for organizing opposition; our labor is still the foundation of the economy, but as jobs no longer provide us with a reliable foundation for our own lives, let alone for organizing, we must come up with a strategy that solves the challenges this instability poses and takes advantage of it to build momentum towards a complete transformation of life. Déclassé war is just that strategy.
Antivocation provocation by Average Guy Fawkes and Citizen Caine, CrimethInc. Labor Union of the Unemployed Local 47. If this sounds good in theory but you can’t imagine how to go about it in practice, we can provide a wide variety of concrete testimonials through any of the various CrimethInc. addresses. As for the admittedly cursory analysis of class and declassing, we’re confident you can work out the subtleties yourself.
Out of Order—Sorry for the Inconvenience!
We are not merchandise or mercenaries. We are not products that sell themselves. We cannot be bought or leased—we are already self-possessed.
What child earnestly dreams of growing up to be a grill cook, a popcorn vendor? What young heart yearns to manage advertising accounts or supervise fellow “team members” at a corporate supermarket? We are dropping out because the market offers us no wealth we can recognize. Digital video discs? We’re sick of watching actors, we want adventures of our own. Political parties, legislative solutions? We want, for once, the experience of using our own power, representing ourselves. Tell us we need more education, we’ll laugh—we know there isn’t room for all of us at the top, and we’re starting to question whether we want to be there, anyway. Tell us we need better work ethics, prescription drugs, career counseling, psychiatric care, perhaps a summer on the student hostel circuit, we’ll jeer—we know, finally, that the problem is not us. We are through with symptomatic treatment, blaming the victim. You always told us if we lost our jobs, it would be the end of the world—sounds like it’s worth a shot.