Re: <nettime> Brexit democracy

[Brian Holmes <bhcontinentaldrift@gmail.com>]

Wendy Brown wrote:
> Insistence that 'another world is possible' runs opposite to this tide
> of general despair... The Left alone persists in a belief (or in a 
polemic,
> absent a belief) that all could live well, live free, and live together
> - a dream whose abandonment is expressed in the ascendency of neoliberal
> reason and is why this form of reason could so easily take hold.

Ian Alan Paul wrote:
> I've already articulated my thoughts on NetTime 
> concerning where I believe this "other" world becomes possible: in 
> powerful, diverse, contagious, collective refusals which create the 
> conditions within which something otherwise can take hold.

Sean Cubitt wrote:
> Rust belt America and the abandoned North of England will not get better
> because of new right policies...
> What happens if we present taking back control as a mission of the
> Left - if, instead of believing that it lacks reason or authenticity, we
> listen to and act on the popular voice?

Ian, your "proposal" is at best a dream and a polemic. On that basis, 
hope can definitely spring eternal - but it will never get anywhere, 
because there is a difference between the messianic and the political. 
The fact is that powerful, diverse, contagious collective refusals are 
springing up relatively frequently in the world, and even in the US - 
but since there is no program, no concrete plan or demand, nothing takes 
hold in the wake of these revolts. Supporting them remains essential, in 
the way that dreams and utopias are essential. But I think there's 
another responsibility, which is to imagine and get behind the factors 
of sweeping systemic change, which is what the times are callling for.

Sean, I think your question is being asked in the US by every would-be 
consultant to the Democratic Party. However, it will take a 
quasi-revolutionary aim and some tremendous legislation to provide a 
real answer. The center left in the US, and surely also in Britain, 
could overcome its loss of the working-class vote by subsidizing massive 
construction and repair programs in order to prepare public 
infrastructure for climate change. This would be a tremendously positive 
direction for both countries, because it would admit the reality of 
global ecological change and make it a central issue for the state, 
*while simultaneously giving disenfranchised working-class people 
exactly the kinds of employment they are demanding.* In the US this 
would offer a counter-proposal to the one now being made by the right, 
which is to restore working-class jobs by becoming the world's biggest 
energy exporter. Could any more stark alternative be imagined?

The problem is, the right can achieve its goal over the short term by 
means of existing market arrangements, whereas the left will have to 
make major changes in both the taxation and monetary systems, in order 
to free up the credit needed for deep investment in public 
infrastructure. History shows that this can be done in emergency 
situations - and increasingly, the emergency situations are at hand. But 
established center-left politicians are only able to pursue the wealth 
generated by the urban cognitive and financial sectors, within the 
global free-trade networks set up by neoliberalism. That's what Obama 
did, and despite all his reforms he failed politically (which means he 
failed in every respect). So for any substantial change to happen, we 
need a missing politics, a missing demand from both popular and 
professional sectors.

Intellectuals could help to produce this demand. That could be our job, 
even if we'll never be paid for it. Still I think it would be worth 
doing. Otherwise, the future is all-too predictable....

best, Brian

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