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The Machine and Its Discontents: a Fredy Perlman Anthology

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The Machine and Its Discontents: a Fredy Perlman Anthology the machine and its discontents A Fredy Perlman Anthology the MACHINE And its discontents A Fredy Perlman Anthology edited and introduced by darren poynton THEORY AND PRACTICE ACTIVE DISTRIBUTION 2018 Theory and Practice and Active Distribution www.theoryandpractice.org.uk www.activedistribution.org Paperback ISBN: 978-0-9956609-7-7 Hardback ISBN: 978-0-9956609-8-4 With thanks to Lorraine Perlman Photo montages by Fredy Perlman: Page 10: A Modern Ziggurat. Page 78: The Old Regime. Page 140: Untitled. Page 192: Leader, Cadre, Liberated Masses. Page 228: Untitled Contents Introduction 7 Part One: Worker-Student Uprisings Anything Can Happen 12 Worker-Student Action Committees [Excerpt 2! "irth o# a Revo&utionary Movement in (ugos&avia )) Part Two: Critique of Political Economy *e Reproduction o# Dai&y ii#e -. Essay on Commodity Fetishism 1.2 Part Tree: Critique of Leaders 0en Theses on the Pro&i#eration o# Egocrats 122 *e Sei3ure o# State Po4er [Excerpts 12- Part Four: Critique of #ationalism *e Continuing Appea& o# 5ationa&ism 162 Part Fi$e: Critique of ‘Progress& Progress and Nuc&ear Po4er 2!. "i7&iography 2!- Index 22) Introduction – The only -ist name I respond to is “cellist.” Of the generation that came of age through the turbulent events of 1968, Fredy Perlman is certainly an individual that shines brightly. Perlman’s journey into radical politics began in Los Angeles in the summer of 1953 when, at the age of 19, he began working at the Daily Bruin – the student newspaper of the University of California. At the time Senator McCarthy’s anti-communist ‘Red Scare’ was in full swing and its repression was focussing on the circles in which Perlman moved. The paper’s pro civil liberties outlook, that ridiculed the para- noia of the era and gave a voice to those persecuted by the state, caused it to be out of favour with the authorities. The establishment press mounted a smear campaign against the Daily Bruin, claiming that under its influence the university had become a “little red school- house”. In December 1954 new regulations were imposed on the newspaper. All five editors and the majority of their co-workers promptly resigned. Perlman and other former staf tried to set up an alternative paper, though in the end economic pressures led to the closure of the project afer only a few issues. None of the Daily Bruin editors had been working on behalf of any radical party or ideology, in fact they had divergent political views but all were committed to serious journalism and were not easily intimidated by the authorities. The experience led Perlman to hold a permanent suspicion against institutional authority and those who upheld it. In 1963 Fredy Perlman and his wife Lorraine lef America and headed to Europe. Perlman applied for a student visa in the country of his birth, Czechoslovakia (which he had fled as a young child with his parents in 1938 ahead of the Nazi invasion), but his application was rejected. He studied at Belgrade University until 1966 where he received a PhD for a dissertation focussing on Kosovo which was entitled, Conditions for the Development of a Backward Region. In May ‘68 afer lecturing in Turin, Italy, Perlman caught a train to Paris arriving just before the railways were shut down by a strike-wave that was sweeping the country. The experiences of the following weeks would have a deep efect on his subsequent views and would remain a benchmark whenever he considered the potentials of social move- ments in the future. Perlman participated in a student-worker action committee at the Sorbonne, which had been occupied by its students. They held discussions and attempted to form links and communicate with the auto workers who worked and lived in the suburbs of Paris. Oficial union bureaucrats were not open to the possibility of ‘their’ strike being taken away from them, and as the more radical perspect- ives coming from the committees could not be co-opted into the usual demands around pay and conditions they tried to isolate the striking factory workers from the ideas that the activists were disseminating. Factory gates were kept locked and union oficials attempted to mediate all communication with the workers on the inside. On one occasion, Perlman and a group of activists were arrested for tres- passing afer they had climbed the gates of a suburban factory. In court, Perlman declared that he was an American professor and that the action was part of his research on French labour unions. Though no doubt skeptical, the judge dropped the charges. It was during these intense event filled weeks that Perlman came across ideas and histories that would influence him over the following decade: the polit- ical critiques of the Situationist International, anarchism and the history of the Spanish Revolution, and the council communists. Returning to the US, he began the publishing project Black & Red. Initially operating out of Kalamazoo, Michigan, it’s first publications were in the form of a periodical which ran for six and a half issues. In 1969 the project moved to Detroit and took part in the establishment of a printing co-op that would print further Black & Red titles as well as numerous other pamphlets and books for other community and radical 8 Introduction groups. As a part of Black & Red, Perlman was responsible for co-trans- lating and making available to an English speaking audience many important texts of the lef-libertarian movement including Guy Debord’s The Society of the Spectacle, Voline’s The Unknown Revolution, Jacques Camatte’s The Wandering of Humanity, I.I. Rubin’s Essays on Marx’s Theory of Value, and Jean Barrot & Francois Martin’s The Eclipse and Re-emergence of the Communist Movement. As time went on the fading hopes from ‘68 that ‘anything can happen’, coupled with a rising concern with plight of the environment, led to Perlman to drif away from his earlier positions and to become more concerned with questioning the Western notions of ‘civilisation’ and ‘progress’. It is these later writings for which he is probably best known, his book Against His-story, Against Leviathan! remains highly influential in anarchist-primitivist circles. How well his writings from this later period sit with those from his earlier life will be lef for the reader to decide. However, as Ken Knabb, English language translator of the texts of the Situationist International, has perceptively noted – perhaps Perlman pre-emptively provided a self-critique in an earlier book he had written about his former teacher C. Wright Mills, The Inco- herence of the Intellectual: Yet even though Mills rejects the passivity with which men accept their own fragmentation, he no longer strug- gles against it. The coherent self-determined man becomes an exotic creature who lived in a distant past and in extremely diferent material circumstances . The main drif is no longer the program of the right which can be opposed by the program of the lef; it is now an exter- nal spectacle which follows its course like a disease . The rif between theory and practice, thought and action, widens; political ideals can no longer be trans- lated into practical projects. On July 26th 1985 Perlman underwent heart surgery for a condition he had developed in his childhood. His was unable to recover from the operation and passed away in hospital at the age of 50. Up to the time of his death he had continued working on projects for Black & Red. 9 Part One: Worker-Student Uprisings Anything Can Happen This text was published in issue one of Black & Red. It illustrates Perlman’s hopes and aspirations of the time. 8"e $ealists9 +emand the Impossi7&e:; *is s&ogan9 de%e&oped in 'ay 7y re%olutionaries in France9 <ies in the #ace o# common sense9 especial&y the 8common sense; of American corporate-mi&itary propaganda. What happened in 'ay also <ies in the #ace of ofcial American 8common sense=; In #act9 in terms o# American 8common sense9; much o# 4hat happens in the 4or&d e%ery day is impossi7&e= It can?t happen= I# it does happen9 then the ofcial 8common sense; is nonsense@ it is a set of myths and #antasies= "ut hoe can common sense 7e nonsense? *at?s impossi7&e= 0o demonstrate that anything is possi7&e9 this essay 4i&& p&ace some of the myths alongside some of the e%ents= *e essay 4i&& then try to Bnd out 4hy some of the myths are possi7&e9 in other 4ords9 it 4i&& exp&ore the 8scientiBc 7asis; of the myths= *e essay9 i# success#u&9 4i&& thus shoe that anything is possi7&e@ it?s e%en possi7&e #or a popu&ation to take myths #or common sense9 and it?s possi7&e #or mythmakers to con%ince themse&%es o# the reality of their myths in the #ace o# reality itse&#= American “Common Sense” C It?s impossi7&e #or peop&e to run their o4n &i%esD that?s 4hy they don?t have the poeer to do so. 1eop&e are poeer&ess 7ecause they have neither the a7i&ity nor the desire to control and decide about the social and material conditions in 4hich they &i%e= C 1eop&e on&y 4ant po4er and pri%i&eges over each other= It 4ou&d 7e impossi7&e9 #or examp&e9 #or uni%ersity students to Bght against the institution 4hich assures them a pri%i&eged position= *ose students 4ho study do so to get high grades9 7ecause 4ith the high grades they can get high-paying Eobs9 4hich means the abi&ity to manage and manipu&ate other peop&e9 and the a7i&ity to 7uy more consumer goods than other peop&e= I# &earning 4ere not re4arded 4ith high grades9 high pay, po4er over others and &ots o# goods9 no one 4ou&d &earnD there?d 7e no moti%ation #or &earning= C It 4ou&d 7e Eust as impossi7&e #or 4orkers to 4ant to run their #actories9 to 4ant to decide about their production= A&& that 4orkers are interested in is 4ages@ they Eust 4ant more 4ages than others have9 so as to 7uy 7igger houses9 more cars and &onger trips= C E%en i# students9 4orkers9 #armers 4anted something diFerent9 they’re ob%ious&y satisBed 4ith 4hat they’re doing9 other4ise they 4ou&dn?t 7e doing it= C In any case9 those 4ho aren?t satisBed can #ree&y express their dissatis#action 7y 7uying and 7y %oting@ they don?t have to 7uy the things they don?t &ike9 and they don?t have to %ote #or the candidates they don?t &ike= It?s impossi7&e #or them to change their situation any other 4ay.
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