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"It is not enough that the conditions of labour are concentrated at one pole of society in the shape of capital, while at the other pole are grouped masses of men who have nothing to sell but their labour-power. Nor is it enough that they are compelled to sell themselves voluntarily. The advance of capitalist production develops a working class which by education, tradition and habit looks upon the requirements of that mode of production as self-evident natural laws. The organization of the capitalist process of production, once it is fully developed, breaks down all resistance. The constant generation of a relative surplus population keeps the law of the supply and demand of labour, and therefore wages, within narrow limits which correspond to capital’s valorization requirements. The silent compulsion of economic relations sets the seal on the domination of the capitalist over the worker. Direct extra-economic force is still of course used, but only in exceptional cases. In the ordinary run of things, the worker can be left to the ‘‘natural laws of production,’’ i.e., it is possible to rely on his dependence on capital, which springs from the conditions of production themselves, and is guaranteed in perpetuity by them. It is otherwise during the historical genesis of capitalist production. The rising bourgeoisie needs the power of the state, and uses it to ‘‘regulate’’ wages, i.e., to force them into the limits suitable to make a profit, to lengthen the working day, and to keep the worker himself at his normal level of dependence. This is an essential aspect of so-called primitive accumulation. [...] the pretensions of capital in its embryonic state, in its state of becoming, when it cannot yet use the sheer force of economic relations to secure its right to absorb a sufficient quantity of surplus labour, but must be aided by the power of the state. . . . Centuries are required before the ‘‘free’’ worker, owing to the greater development of the capitalist mode of production, makes a voluntary agreement, i.e. is compelled by social conditions to sell the whole of his active life." Aaron

Marx, as quoted by Perelman

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The system, however, was not overturned, but instead grew stronger. Workers were forced to surrender more and more of their traditional periods of leisure (see Hill 1967; Reid 1976, 76–101). The working day was lengthened (Hammond and Hammond 1919, 5–7). The working class, in the person of Spence, cried out: ‘‘Instead of working only six days a week we are obliged to work at the rate of eight or nine and yet can hardly subsist . . . and still the cry is work—work—ye are idle. . . . We, God help us, have fallen under the hardest set of masters that have ever existed’’ (cited in Kemp-Ashraf 1966, 277; see also Tawney 1926, esp. 223). This statement was eloquent enough to earn its author a sentence of three years’ imprisonment after its publication in 1803—a result typical of the fate of those who challenged the capitalist order. Whenever the working class and its friends effectively protested against capitalism, the silent compulsion of capital (Marx 1977, 899) gave way to compulsory silence.

The Invention of Capitalism, Michael Perelman

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 Gender Trouble, Judith Butler (ch iv.  ¶ 6)

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In the absence of capital controls, most countries are tightly restrained by the need to hold the interest of fidgety international financial markets. They must send a steady flow of goods and services to the United States and elsewhere in the North in order to self-insure against capital flow reversals, as well as to pay for the property their elites acquire in rich countries and, of course, to service public and private foreign debt. Trade surpluses are often seen as a sign of competitiveness (good) or mercantilism (bad), but when they are required to compensate for persistent financial outflows, they might better be seen as a form of tribute. We can see this clearly in Africa, as meticulously documented in Africa’s Odious Debts, by James K. Boyce and Léonce Ndikumana. First, a government borrows money from abroad, usually for some development project. Then, the foreign currency balances created by the loan are appropriated by the country’s wealthy elite—they become personal bank accounts in New York or London. Finally, the country as a whole is compelled to generate an export surplus to service the debt. In effect, African oil, diamonds, and chocolate are turned into private wealth in the United States and Europe. It’s only a minor crime in the scale of things that the United States gets its chocolate and diamonds for free. The great crime is that African communities are prevented from using their claim on these resources to develop their own collective capabilities.

https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/cautious-case-economic-nationalism-global-capitalism

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There is only one way to escape the alienation of present-day society: to retreat ahead of it.

Roland Barthes

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The evolution of visual distance-perception and integration with goal-directed action was a central factor in the evolution of human consciousness and intelligence (e.g. spotting an oasis in the distance and planning how to get there). Processing distal information requires 1) A narrow locus of attention so we are not overwhelmed by the entire visual field (aligns with the fact that non-human primates are much better at certain tasks that require broad processing of visual information: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTgeLEWr614). 2) Planning over longer durations of time and anticipating contingencies. 3) Both of these require increasing abstraction and sensory-motor-motivational integration; this is perhaps subserved by the expansion of the prefrontal cortex in humans. These evolutionary changes provided the backdrop that would allow mutations leading to the connection of vocal innate and motor learning circuits to be highly advantageous and lead to the development of language (cf. Erich Jarvis’ work on vocal learning in songbirds). 

Increasing appreciation of spatiotemporal distance leads to the development of a narrative self which has to situate itself in increasingly complex spatiotemporal trajectories. The default-mode network, which subserves self-centered thinking, perhaps developed alongside this. Dysfunctions of the default-mode network, such as excessive rumination and eventual depression, are the result of repeated failures to positively situate oneself in a narrative trajectory. The lack of such extended temporality in lower animals suggests that they may not be able to serve as models of the most essential features of mood disorder.

In early human times, culture served to ameliorate the difficulty of processing increasingly complex spatiotemporal trajectories. Culture produces self-narratives and group-narratives that disburden us from having to compute an excessively large set of possibilities. Also important, culture produces narratives in space, through the construction of physical signifiers that denote natural paths of movement and contexts of ritual (cf. Henri Lefebvre, “The Production of Space”). With the emergence of capitalism as the leading mode of production and ideology, the self, and space as well, becomes increasingly abstract. The self is unmoored from others and from cultural narratives and encouraged to “think for itself.” The central narrative becomes that of individual success, of endless progression up the ladder of happiness. Space no longer contains signifiers of ritual contexts or natural paths of movement, but only those that facilitate the most efficient transport and storage of bodies. Arenas of social interaction are merely contractual–not only the monetary contract between buyers and sellers but the contracts of social norms that allow for expedient monetary exchange.

Culture, which used to unify self, group, and world in coherent spatiotemporal narrative, now subjects an atomized self to a singular, self-realized metric of “happiness” and a hostile world where every interaction has the potential for failure and disappointment. It is no wonder that neuroticism is one of the defining features of the modern personality, and why failure to regulate neuroticism is a substantial contributor to the etiology of unhappiness. In contemporary times, an alliance of psychologists and pharmaceutical capital has transformed unhappiness into a disorder and a marketing demographic. Whether this is realized in antidepressant prescriptions or merely the implantation of the notion that unhappiness is a biological disorder with a technical solution, the matter of the fact is that individuals are now interpreting their unhappiness on the basis of neoliberal individualism and technological rationality. With all of this being the case, individuals are faced with few options, most of which are merely palliative: Accept a technical solution, resort to hedonism and escapism, or deploy some means of catharsis.

To simplify, I am suggesting that there is an interesting link between the evolution of visual distance-perception and the development of a spatiotemporally-extended narrative self, which then introduces both novel benefits and challenges—the primary benefit being spatiotemporally-extended planning, the primary challenge being the difficulty of situating the self in positive spatiotemporal trajectories. Historically, this challenge was addressed by two different means: Cultural formations and technological rationality, both of which have their own benefits and challenges. Cultural formations, the primordial solution, put the self at ease in a semiotically rigid groups and environments, but lead to superstition, chauvinism, etc.  Technological rationality (which I believe was unable to get off the ground until it entered into a positive, reciprocal relationship with capitalism) allows for the extraordinary expansion of productive forces, innovation, and technology, but results in a semiotically abstract, disorienting, and alienating world that renders the individual prone to neuroticism and potentially devastating psychological disorders. I wonder, if the world is ever purged of the destructive vestiges of culture that enable discrimination and violence (also, barring ecological collapse), will this always be the case? Even if production becomes organized on a socialist basis, will this always be the case? It possible that abstraction (in Lefebvre’s sense) has become so deeply inscribed into the fabric of our world that we cannot return to the womb of culture, that psychopathology is the price we have paid for this particular form of progress.

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Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space 1974

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Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space 1974

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…the ideology of 'technical rationality' is incomplete and therefore internally incoherent. It completely fails to account for the spread of irrationalism, and the regression to superstition, mysticism and misanthropy which accompany the alleged victory of 'technological rationality' in late capitalism.  The contradiction between the increased skill and culture of the mass of the working- class on the one hand, and the petrified hierarchical structure of command in the factory, economy and state on the other, generates a pragmatic and apologetic ideology which combines idealization of 'experts' with scepticism towards 'education' and 'culture'. This ideology replaces the naive faith in the perfectibility of man, characteristic of the rising bourgeoisie of the 18th and 19th centuries, with a 'certainty' of the incorrigibly evil and aggressive 'nature' of man. Crude neo-Darwinism (Lorenz), profound cultural and civilizational pessimism and fundamental misanthropy serve as auxiliary supports of the ideology of 'technical rationality' in its overall justification of the existing social order. The germs of the 'destruction of reason' - which first appeared at the outset of the monopoly-capitalist or imperialist age – bore their fruit in the fascist or crypto-fascist ideologies of the inter-war period. Despite the contemporary adulation of the exact sciences, the aura of experts and the cult of space travel, irrationalism has continued to flourish in different forms since the Second World War. Suggestively it has now spread on a wide scale to the AngloSaxon countries, which before the Second World War were still largely dominated by bourgeois-rationalist pragmatism. 'Lower' ideological phenomena, such as the vast extension of commercial astrology, fortune-telling, and narcotism should be viewed in the same light. Late capitalist social structure and ideology further inculcate compulsive striving for success and mechanical submission to 'technological authority', which generate frequent neurotic stress. Such modes of behaviour, with their elimination of critical thought or conscience, and their training towards blind conformity and obedience, potentially create perilous preconditions for semifascist acceptance of inhuman orders, for reasons of convenience or habit.

Ernest Mandel, Late Capitalism 1972

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But it is not only its hierarchical organization which determines the role of the capitalist State as an instrument of bourgeois rule. It is its total structure which ensures that the State -even where it is most 'democratic' - can play this and only this role. For this structure is twice over-determined by the bourgeois class. Firstly, promotion to the executive positions in the State apparatus is filtered by a long selection process, in which it is not so much professional competence as conformity to the general norms of bourgeois conduct which assure success - if not, as in many imperialist countries, outright membership of one of the large 'governing' parties. Since this selection itself involves ruthless elimination and inculcates both a competitive spirit and empathy with the ruling ideology, it is inconceivable that anyone rejecting or resisting the existing social order and its norms of thought and action could in the ordinary course of events advance to the top of the bourgeois State apparatus. Convinced and active pacifists do not normally become generals, and it is absolutely certain that they do not become Chiefs of General Staff. To imagine that the bourgeois State apparatus could be used for a socialist transformation of capitalist society is as illusory as to suppose that an army could be dissolved with the aid of 'pacifist generals'.

Ernest Mandel, Late Capitalism 1972

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Another hallmark of late capitalism is the increasing liability of the social system to explosive economic and political crises which directly threaten the whole capitalist mode of production. Consequently, crisis management' is just as vital a function of the late capitalist State as its responsibility for a greatly increased range of 'general conditions of production' or its efforts to ensure a more rapid valorization of surplus-capital. Economically, this 'crisis management' includes the whole arsenal of government counter-cyclical policies, designed to prevent, or at least postpone for as long as possible, the return of catastrophic slumps on the scale of 1929-32. Socially, it involves a permanent effort to avert the growing crisis of capitalist relations of production by a systematic attack on proletarian class consciousness. The State thus deploys a huge machinery of ideological manipulation to 'integrate' the worker into late capitalist society as a consumer, 'social partner' or 'citizen' (and ipso facto supporter of the existing social order), and so on. It constantly seeks to divert any rebellion into reforms containable within the system, and to undermine working-class solidarity in factory and economy (for example by the introduction of new methods for calculating and paying wages, the promotion of tension between indigenous and immigrant workers, the fabrication of a variety of participatory and consultative boards, the proclamation of incomes policies or 'social contracts', and so on). The general pressure for increased control of all the elements of the productive and reproductive process, either directly by monopoly capital or indirectly by the late capitalist State, is an inevitable consequence of the combined need to prevent social crises from menacing the system, and to provide economic guarantees for the process of valorization and accumulation in late capitalism. The growing hypertrophy and growing autonomy of the late capitalist State are historically a corollary of the increasing difficulties of a smooth valorization of capital and realization of surplus-value. They reflect capital's increasing lack of confidence in its ability to extend or consolidate its rule by automatic economic processes. They are also linked to the intensification of class struggle between capital and labour-in other words, to the growing emancipation of the working-class from complete and passive subordination to the ideology of the bourgeoisie, and its periodic emergence as an independent force in political conflicts. They correspond to the aggravation of social contradictions both within and between the metropolitan imperialist countries, between the imperialist system as a whole and the non-capitalist States, and between the ruling and exploited classes in the semi-colonies. The greater the intervention of the State in the capitalist economic system, the clearer does it become that this system is afflicted with an incurable malady. In this connection, the notion recently advanced by Poulantzas that in the present phase of capitalism the main function of the bourgeois State is political, while the main form of bourgeois ideology is 'economist', is a scholastic and artificial attempt to separate closely interdependent class mechanisms. Late capitalism is characterized by the simultaneous combination of the directly economic role of the bourgeois State, the drive to depoliticize the working-class and the myth of a technologically determined, omnipotent economy which can allegedly overcome class antagonisms, ensure uninterrupted growth, steadily raise consumption and thereby bring forth a 'pluralistic' society. The objective function of 'economist' ideology is undoubtedly to try to dismantle proletarian class struggle. But the objective necessity of this ideology corresponds exactly to the increasing compulsion for the State to intervene in the late capitalist economy, and to the danger that this intervention will educate the working-class in the overall economic and social shape of the society whose wealth it produces -potentially an enormous threat to late capitalism. To isolate one element out of this total complex and declare it the 'principal' aspect is intellectually a futile pastime.

Ernest Mandel, Late Capitalism

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rose petal tip cigarette factory, 1959

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Is XYZ a Feminist?: Digital Labor, Sustainability and the Feminist Think Piece Industrial Complex

I’ve been thinking a lot lately of immaterial digital labor. After being introduced to the term from a recent issue of The Media, I’ve found myself coming to view much of my own work (as someone who’s been an unpaid intern for various digital media companies and writing online, unpaid or underpaid, for almost three years now) in accordance with their definitions of ’digital labor’ and ‘immaterial labor’. For online journalists/bloggers/content-creators working on purely-intangible commodities, it’s often difficult for us to assess the value digital immaterial labor, since it travels without the cost limitations of standard print media and is provided to a public that largely came of age demanding free access to the content on the Internet. With a few notable outliers that had established journalistic integrity and name-recognition long before the digital age (here’s looking at you New Yorker, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, etc.) it’s well-established that free access to digital content is considered ‘the norm’ within media consumption.

This has dramatic effects. Practically all websites are forced to gain revenue (even just to continue their existing ventures) through ads based on metrics—the more clicks, shares or likes an article gets, the more reach its ads have to the public, making the space more valuable to advertisers. This, so far, (as is probably common knowledge at this point) has perpetuated a culture of ‘clickbait journalism’ which relies on “sensationalist headlines to attract click-throughs” and to encourage spreadability through social media. While not fundamentally an issue, it often times reduces the nuance of journalistic voices to things that can garner traffic and allow sites to gain enough money in ad revenue to continue to function.

’Feminism,’ a complex, highly ambiguous term for many overlapping ideologies, has often been reduced to clickbait journalism to unify issues vaguely partisan in support of often low-hanging, easily-consumable stances, far removed from radical notions of the word. Since 49.6 percent of the world is women,  it isn’t hard for sites to find a female demographic in support of their position and this often perpetuates what Chanelle Adams calls “The Feminist Think Piece Industrial Complex,” utilizing digital immaterial labor (mostly unpaid or underpaid) to “exploit the young and digitally naive” under the guise of contributing to a larger conversation about the state of contemporary feminism. She sees this as an issue in its ability to “[pluralize] feminism” and “[threaten] to dissolve the importance of community restoration and regeneration.” In short, the Feminist Think Piece Industrial Complex is analogous to the “infamous click-bait question: Is XYZ a feminist?” in its continual search for a uniform, ‘pluralized’ verdict on whether or not something is feminist—in the process, reducing the complexity of feminism to something that can be shaped in the image of the global, for-profit media giants publishing such articles.

Jonah Peretti, founder of the global media site BuzzFeed, once, in his undergraduate years at UC Santa Cruz, wrote a piece titled “Capitalism and Schizophrenia: Contemporary Visual Culture and the Acceleration of Identity Formation/Dissolution”, where he discussed identity formation in the context of theorists like Jacques Lacan, Frederic Jameson, and Roland Barthes. Where Jameson often saw commodities through a lens of self-identification, Peretti, leaning on Barthes’ reading of Lacan, says that, like the cinema, viewers “’narcissistically identify’ with an image-repertoire that defines the ideological content of a period in history.” For Barthes, this means viewers naturally identify with certain silver screen cinema protagonists which are “producing pleasure, but also communicating and transmitting ideology” for the viewer. Peretti, updating this logic for an early Internet age, asserts that this identification can be extended to Internet identity formation, where, thanks to the acceleration of current Internet speeds, consumers can “assume and shed identities” at an unprecedented rate.

This is the logic of clickbait feminism. When one clicks the link to “10 Female Characters Who Wore Heels In The Face Of Death”, they take pleasure in their identification with the ten women in life-threatening roles, ones proving that they can both defend themselves while looking feminine. While identity formation is not fundamentally an issue, it becomes a bit questionable when sites like Buzzfeed, Huffington Post, Elite Daily (among others) use this subconscious identification (which is still often times built on a platform of unpaid or underpaid immaterial digital labor, as with Buzzfeed’s Community, which encourages users to make their own listicles, unpaid) to generate ad revenue, market products, and sell ideology to its 200 Million+ monthly visitors.

I wonder a lot about the world that these sorts of digital media companies are, if not creating, at least fostering and perpetuating. Each day, my Facebook/Twitter/Tumblr timelines are filled with articles, largely from huge, unchecked media companies, on feminism, #BlackLivesMatter, and major (and minor) acts of social injustice—all these sorts of ideological issues that people build their entire world views around. As young people growing up in an age of Tumblr activism, we’re constantly inundated by things to feel outraged by—social injustices, celebrity feminism (or lack thereof), brands assuring us that they too support gay rights. And that model, first and foremost, is just not sustainable. When everyone continually shouts the loudest on the web, no one is heard—everything just becomes “pluralized”—sounds, colors and noise, a feedback loop of hyperbole after hyperbole. And that’s really really terrifying, if not for anything else, for the sake of these social movements—built on real, unsolved, global issues, yet only valuable in their ability to garner web traffic.

When will the hyper-reactionary liberal ‘netstreamers’ of this generation be so overwhelmed in things to care about that they finally, ultimately, uniformly stop giving a shit? Will white people stop caring about #BlackLivesMatter when it stops getting clicks on global media sites? Will men stop empathizing with women once feminism recedes from the headlines? Will the public stop caring about LGBTQ activism when every brand on social media finally stops ‘rainbow washing’? Will the hyperbole of the clickbait headline finally eat itself?

Adams’ last point about needing time for “community restoration and regeneration” is the closest thing to a ‘take away’ I can offer, as a lot of these issues don’t have easy answers. But realize that it’s important within feminism or racial equality (or whatever activist space you’re working in) to recognize the need for space and recovery at times, and to foster a space that allows for such. Here’s hoping the next generation of activist spaces offers more than hyper-reactionary Internet shouting and serve a function greater than just garnering clicks on the web.