Morning Comrades.
I had fully intended to present another art series today but my mind is running today after having found some time on Sunday to read up on some much needed economics, a little bit of history and some digging into an interesting social study that has recently been updated out of Harvard.
This is going to be one of those rare occurrences where I dare to, or rather aim to predict a little of our future based on the above. I tend to shy away from those only because I don’t want to add to anyone’s doom scrolling, or reading in this case. To be absolutely clear, I am not writing any of this with glee or excitement- the case against accelerationism has already been made. Additionally, I always aim at the very least to present possible solutions to potential or actual problems facing us but in this case I am relatively unsure about what to do. Nevertheless, enough people with power to actually materially address these issues are either ignorantly putting their heads in the sand or are gleefully looking forward to a potential confrontation with the mass population, for reasons all too obvious.
This is also quite specific to Europe even though what I am about to explain has been a constant reality for as long as I have been alive in Latin America as well as the majority of the so-called Global South. We are heading towards a potential critical mass event this Winter that has not been witnessed in NATO countries for a hundred years, only this time I do not see the interest, let alone will of the ruling class to extinguish the lint running towards the proverbial power keg.
Part of the insane and inhumane nature of capitalism are constant economic crashes. Their purposes are clear and if they are not, please read Naomi Klein’s “Shock Doctrine”. Since the early 70s to about the Dot-Com Crash of the late 90s however, after every crash, that resulted in semi-temporary material declines of “wealth”, spending power, the monetary worth of wages has bounced back to pre-crash levels. Any crash post the late 90s however, has left workers with less and less actual money, the so-called bounce back never occurred, or, when it did, never reached levels similar to pre-crash levels. To cut a super long story short, actual material worth within capitalism has declined, and declined steadily for the last 30 years plus, predominately for the working poor - and yes, that includes more people that they themselves would dare to admit. The so-called “middle classes” essentially do not exist any longer and even the self-perceived class of people are a few shitty, unfortunate months away from financial, and this physical and emotional, ruin.
Fast forward to now, after decades of austerity, zero interest banking across Europe, privatization to the max ( at the expense of us and the profit of them ) and now proxy wars between two super powers, and we are facing a genuine looming crisis that again, I don’t see being mentioned enough, if at all.
Cue said social study I read over the weekend. It was written by Erica Chenoweth who is an American political scientist, professor of public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. They are known for their research work on non-violent civil resistance movements and pinning the so-called 3.5% rule. Briefly, The 3.5% rule is drawn from empirical research done by Chenoweth and Stephan (2011) on resistance campaigns from 1990-2006. In the dataset developed by Chenoweth and Stephan every campaign that mobilised at least 3.5% of the population in sustained protest was successful. Successful in overthrowing their respective governments, violently and / or non-violently, except for Bahrain in 2011-2014, that appears to have decisively failed despite achieving over 6% popular participation at its peak. One deviation from the total number of movements studied.
This is important to keep in mind for the next part.
As I am sure, most of you have been feeling the pinch, money wise. Rising costs across the board, inflation, stagnant wages- you name it, or rather, it is in actuality all of these events occurring at the same time. What is happening in Europe specifically is that due to the US / Russia proxy war in Ukraine and the EU, in addition to the UK having heavily relied on energy supply from Russia these past 20 years - that supply has been cut off. Within capitalism whenever supply is lower than demand, prices rise, and risen they have, exponentially so - and now cue the very nature of the so-called “free market” - all, and genuinely all, Energy Firms have raised their prices beyond the “natural” ( it’s anything but, but that’s a discussion for another day ) market bumps as they realized that they can easily increase their prices even more and people will stay pay their bills. This goes for all key elements of society: food, shelter, warmth and housing. Make no mistake, the key component to the looming crisis is capitalism in itself, with the their puppets that sit government happier with their bribes from said companies and not doing the job we pay them for.
All of this, coupled with the last couple decades of capitalism absolutely not being reigned in by the so-called representative governments, increasing ( and purposely created ) disillusionment with said governments across the board, a media empire across the west that produces non-stop mind numbing propaganda to numb and dumb the populace and we’re heading for the perfect storm.
Several economists over the last few weeks have warned, direly, that for the first time since the 1950s in Europe, for large parts - and this means somewhere around the 40%(!) mark - of the population, specifically in the UK, the material standard of living will not only stagnate but significantly fall. Furthermore, large parts of said populations come Winter, will be faced with the decision to either pay bills or eat. Now, the malicious part of this narrative spun by essentially all governments is that this is a temporary “blip” on the grand scale of things with thousands of narratives being spun on how to survive a “cruel winter” spinning the idea that an economic upturn is just around the corner, that we just have to tough this out.
That is a lie, purely based on History, basic economics and a little bit of guessing on my part. There will not be a recovery for us, but on the contrary, a continuing of the re-distribution of extreme wealth to the top, as seen in the last few years of pandemic.
What worries me is this: Not only have we been here, at this point in Europe, almost a hundred years ago but taking into account the above mentioned 3.5% study plus the understanding that no government here will even remotely attempt the pseudo-socialist attempt to overt critical mass disobedience that took place under FDR in the U.S. for example, with the New Deal. That was a sham in the sense that it only prevented socialists revolutions in the West for a decade until World War 2, whose economic engine provided the actual wealth generation of the working and middle classes in the West. Well, those that survived it, and 50 million or so did not.
Again, I write this with no glee. Far from it. When economic hardships that cause genuine poverty occur, radicalization, especially to the right / fascist wing occur, have always occurred and will occur again. Nationalism, othering, retraction and war, within and without, will occur and we need to not only be aware of this but be ready for this. Any movement towards fascism, the obscurification of the blame held by the 1% to the “others” ( insert whatever current scapegoat our leaders will chose this week ) for the self-created poverty facing us all, needs to be combated in all shapes and forms. Speaking and acting. Hence my consistent call for organization and joining organization already existing. The storm that is in front of our doors cannot be weathered alone and all the warning signs are here. Feel free to apply to the bigger picture of course if you like.
The fact remains that ultimately it’s a political choice about who you want to help, and our governments are choosing the 1%. This does not have to happen and can, could ( and obviously should ) be averted immediately, by sheer political will. That exists, however, in a most brutal class war fought from above. The old adage “A hungry dog is an obedient dog” comes to mind and that is where we are at.
Time to fight said class war from us to them. Nigh on time.
With love, anger and resolution.
Yours, without compromise,
V.