Destitution

Breaking with Power and Building New Worlds

Morning Comrades.

Every so often I enjoy using this space to offer introductions to ideas and concepts that I lean into when I get pissed off and where my usual solace of community and philosophy aren’t enough I lean heavily into the works of the Invisible Committee. Lately, there has been a lot of that. To be clear, I don’t advise digging too deep into the work and their work alone, it’s beautifully radical, and as radical as the times demand them to be, but even I get carried away in their work, but then again, maybe do, I do think we can all use the fire that they offer. Today’s topic, a central theme of their work is destitution.

The concept is based on their analysis that “there will be no social solution to the present situation” and is an uncompromising diagnosis of the collapse of meaningful collective life in contemporary Western societies. Their claim rests on two interrelated propositions: first, that "society" as a coherent structure no longer exists, and second, that a shared language for common experience has been eroded to the point of nonexistence. The consequences of these conditions are stark: without a shared horizon of understanding, without even the linguistic means to conceptualise an alternative, no reformist or "social" solution can address the crisis unfolding before us. Instead, the dominant tendencies within Western states—marked by securitisation, reactionary identity politics, and technocratic rule—suggest an ongoing slide into fascism, not as an exceptional event but as an organic development of capitalist crisis management.

In the absence of a social fabric or a shared language of struggle, Western societies are increasingly turning to fascism—not necessarily in its historical form, but as a logic of governance suited to managing a population that is both fragmented and restless. The fascism emerging today is not the mass mobilisation of the 20th century, but a diffuse, everyday fascism that manifests through militarised policing, border fortifications, reactionary identity politics, and the normalisation of emergency powers.

Liberal democracy, which once presented itself as an alternative to fascism, is now merely its softer mask. The repressive measures introduced under the banner of "security" are indistinguishable from those employed by openly authoritarian regimes. The expansion of surveillance, the criminalisation of protest, the militarisation of police, and the increasing collaboration between state and corporate power all indicate that democracy is no longer a governing principle but a branding exercise. Meanwhile, much of what claims to be a resistance remains largely trapped in anachronistic forms of organisation and rhetoric, unable to articulate a force capable of breaking this trajectory.

Hence Destitution. Let’s get into it.

This little option gives you the option to opt out of the monthly subscription on here, and gives you access for a month.