Alternative Value Practices in the European Anticapitalist Movement
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OTHER WORLDS, OTHER VALUES: ALTERNATIVE VALUE PRACTICES IN THE EUROPEAN ANTICAPITALIST MOVEMENT Tadzio Mueller Submitted for the degree of DPhil University of Sussex September 2006 2 Statement I hereby declare that this thesis has not been and will not be, submitted in whole or in part to another University for the award of any other degree. Signature:………………………………………… 3 UNIVERSITY OF SUSSEX Tadzio Mueller Submitted for the degree of DPhil Other worlds, other values: alternative value practices in the European anticapitalist movement SUMMARY “Other worlds are possible” was the slogan of the alterglobalisation movement when it was storming global summits a few years ago. This thesis, written from within the European anticapitalist wing of this movement, is an investigation into the possibilities of an effective and sustainable anticapitalist practice in Europe, under conditions of neoliberal accumulation, proceeding in three parts. The first two chapters offer an introduction into the politics, and more generally the ethico-political field of contemporary European anticapitalism emerging in the context of a the global rise of a networked, neoliberal capitalism. In the theoretical core chapter and second part of the thesis I locate my work in strategic discussions within our movement, asking how neoliberal capital can best be fought. I argue that the power of neoliberal capital rests on enclosure, that is the extension of the direct rule of capitalist value form ever deeper into social life, thus creating a hegemony based on habituation and the shrinking of social spaces governed by alternative value logics. In turn, the possibilities for a counterhegemonic anticapitalist practice will be shown to lie in the struggle against this value form, in the creation, defence, and extension of the domain of alternative value practices. The third part consists of an investigation into the effectiveness of two ‘alternative value practices’ emerging out of the summit movement, where I will argue that the political meaning and counterhegemonic potential of a given alternative value practice is never fully contained within itself, that it is indeterminate, arising from within its connections to other such practices. In conclusion, I open up avenues for new political and research questions around the question of how to connect alternative value practices so that they may form an expansive network of practices to rival those of capital. 4 Acknowledgements Writing a thesis is, like all knowledge-production, necessarily a collective process. It is even more so when the thesis aspires, as this does, to be written from within, rather than about, a social movement. The multiplicity of ‘sources’ that came to constitute the final product would exceed any bibliography, however conscientiously assembled, and the conversations that shaped the thoughts that are expressed in this text were far too many to be acknowledged here individually. Thus I thank all my friends and comrades, named and unnamed, that stood (or ran) with me in the streets, with whom I discussed tactics and strategies late into the night in squats in Paris or Barcelona, social forum meetings in Florence or Porto Alegre, subcultural cafes in Stockholm or Berlin, or anywhere else our movement gathers. We will never stop looking for the beach. Of course, within the multitude of thoughts, faces and conversations that shaped this thesis, some deserve special mention. First of all, I would like to thank my supervisors, Dr. Martin Coward and Dr. Jeff Pratt, who managed to both give me enough freedom to follow my own, often disparate intuitions, and to restrain me enough so that I would, in the end, produce a text that could be submitted for a DPhil. Without them, I might never have come back from Buenos Aires. And then there were those who commented on the various drafts of my chapters, and helped to improve them immeasurably (although all the usual disclaimers of course apply): Kolya Abramsky, Paul Chatterton, Massimo De Angelis, Emma Dowling, David Harvie, Ziggy Melamed, Michal Osterweil, Sian Sullivan, Ben Trott, and finally my brother Julian Mueller, whose logic to me always was the sharpest of them all. Chapters V and VI would never have been written without the cooperation of the activists involved in the projects I investigate there, and I thank them once again for their help and insights. Writing a PhD is, first, a frequently lonely and frustrating experience, and I thank my housemates, Benoit Gaillard and Andrew Deak in particular, for supporting me through the difficult patches that I frequently had to wade through. It is, second, frequently a time of financial dependency, and I thank the Economic and Social Research Council for paying my tuition fees for the last two years of my research. I also thank my father, Werner Mueller, for believing in me and supporting me all this way. 5 And finally, I dedicate this thesis to Elin Svedjemo: det är omöjligt att i ord beskriva din roll i mitt arbete, i mitt liv. Utan dig skulle jag inte ha kommit så här långt. Jag älskar dig. Mer än någonting annat. 6 TABLE OF CONTENTS I. INTRODUCTION: OF MOVEMENT, MEASURE AND HOPE………………………4 (i) Movement: European anticapitalism after the summits ……………………………..4 (ii) Strategy, Networks and Intellectuals ………………………………………………….8 (iii) Hope …………………………………………………………………………………….13 (iv) Caminamos Preguntando ……………………………………………………………….19 II. “WILL THE DESTRUCTION BE CONSTRUCTIVE?”.……………………………...27 (i) Introduction: do radicals dream of flying stones? …………………………………...27 (ii) A tale of two riots…………………………………………………………………….…29 Annemasse………………………………………………………………………….29 Thessaloniki………………………………………………………………………...30 (iii) Reading the riot act: (ir)rational, habitual and effervescent riots ………………...32 Rational and irrational crowds…………………………………………………...32 Pierre Bourdieu and the habitual riot ……………………………………………33 Emile Durkheim and the effervescent crowd …………………………………...35 (iv) Re-reading the riot act: in search of lost radicalism………………………………...38 Evian/Annemasse: ATTAC bubbles over……………………………………….38 Gothenburg: smashing the windows of the people’s home…………………...39 Radicalism regained?……………………………………………………………...41 (v) Running riot with Deleuze and Guattari……………………………………………..43 Be realistic, demand the impossible: drawing lines of flight…………………..43 Lines of flight, lines of abolition: of the limits of events……………………….47 (vi) Open ends………………………………………………………………………………50 III. CONTEMPORARY ANTICAPITALISM: SEATTLE TO PARIS AND BACK AGAIN……………………………………………………………………………………….52 (i) Introduction: turning back the clock…………………………………………………..52 (ii) Emergence: tracing the European autonomous movement………………………..53 Stories……………………………………………………………………………….54 Paris: desire and the crisis of vanguardism……………………………………..56 Italy: desire and the power of refusal ……………………………………………61 Germany: spaces for autonomy…………………………………………………..65 (iii) Meanwhile, in a galaxy far away (and yet so close): conditions of possibility…..69 Networks……………………………………………………………………………69 …Neoliberalism……………………………………………………………………72 …and no end to history!…………………………………………………………..78 (iv) Finale: Seattle…………………………………………………………………………...82 IV. DR. STRANGEVALUE, OR: HOW WE (UN)LEARN TO LOVE CAPITAL……..85 (i) After the summits: hegemony strikes back…………………………………………...85 (ii) The hegemony of capitalist value……………………………………………………..88 Deleuzoguattarian capital…………………………………………………………89 The capitalist axiomatic…………………………………………………..89 Money, markets and the integration of desire………………………….92 Marx and the secret of the value form…………………………………………...95 The commodity……………………………………………………………96 Capitalist value and the commodification of life………………………98 The habitual hegemony of capital………………………………………………102 7 1st objection……………………………………………………………….105 2nd objection………………………………………………………………106 3rd objection……………………………………………………………….112 (iii) Conclusion: alternative value practices and counterhegemony…………………113 V. FAREDODGE.NOW: CAPTURE, REFUSAL, INDETERMINACY……………….119 (i) Introduction: from the abstract to the concrete……………………………………..119 (ii) planka.nu……………………………………………………………………………….121 From the barricades to the turnstiles: planka.nu and the antisummit movement…………………………………………………………………………121 En/Insuring free movement: as right, and as fact…………………………….123 (iii) Sweden: the crumbling of the people’s home……………………………………...127 Faredodging in the people’s home……………………………………………...128 Enclosing the people’s home…………………………………………………….131 Moving out of the people’s home……………………………………………….134 (iv) The battle for the flows: coding, conjugating – connecting?……………………..137 Faredodging, filesharing, and other ‘for free behaviour’: refusing capture...137 From discipline to control: the battle for the subways………………………..140 So what? The politics of faredodging – or, politicising lines of flight……….143 (v) Conclusions and open questions…………………………………………………….147 VI. ESCANDA: CRISIS, OPENNESS AND ALTERNATIVE VALUE PRACTICES..150 (i) Introduction: from the frontlines to the backyards of capital……………………...150 (ii) Escanda: from the summits to the mountains……………………………………...153 What is being done?……………………………………………………………….155 (iii) Places against capital?………………………………………………………………..158 (iv) Intensive expansion: renewing energies in Asturias……………………………...162 The political economies of Ronzón, Pola de Lena and Asturias……………..162 Old dogs…: redevelopment in Asturias, or ‘death of a sales-pitch’..164 Asturias: abandoned by capital?……………………………………….164 …and new tricks? Escanda and alternative value practices in Asturias……169 Strategies and counterstrategies………………………………………..170