[iDC] [ox-en] Digital Utopianism

Sun Mar 16 16:39:54 UTC 2008

Thanks for the clarifications Dmytri. I'm on the road for the next few days,
so I'm simply taking your information in.

Michel

On 3/16/08, Dmytri Kleiner <dk at telekommunisten.net> wrote:
>
> On Wed, 12 Mar 2008 15:27:40 -0700 (PDT), Michael Bauwens
> <michelsub2003 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > As far as I understand Oekonux
>
> Hi Michel, Oekonux is used in the title of that article as an example,
> it
> is not about Oekonux specifically, which is not mentioned in the
> article.
>
> The self-description of Oekonux as wanting a "GPL Society" is simply
> the most comical of any similar group, and thus the best example, and
> my recent experiences on their list made it an obvious choice.
>
> Oekonux is far from alone in utopian thinking.
>
> There are many others, i.e. the whole Basic Income and/or Tobin Tax
> crowd,
> or various others promoting that the State should adopt policy A, B or C
> and who believe that democratic participation on it's own can end
> exploitation, //if only the politicians would understand//, for as Marx
> sarcastically comments "how can people, when once they understand
> their system, fail to see it in the best possible plan of the best
> possible state of society?"
>
> Oekonux itself hardly presents a coherent or united view, but Merten
> makes
> it clear, when he's not making wildly inappropriate accusations of
> antisemitism and unsubscribing unwanted voices from his list, that is,
> that he is against class antagonism and wants to "appeal to society
> at large, without distinction of class."
>
> Case in point:
>
>    To: list-en at oekonux.org
>    From: Stefan Merten <smerten at oekonux.de>
>    Message-Id:
> <20080204204241.E85C8ABE6 at paulla.merten-home.homelinux.org>
>
>    [...]
>
>    Oekonux has nothing to do with class struggle in any meaning I know
> of
>
>    [...]
>
> QED.
>
> Later in the same message he demonstrates the late twentieth century
> triumphalism that I refer to very well:
>
>    On exactly that base class struggle has been fought for 200 years -
> and
>    failed. If there were any questions about this they have been
> answered
>    in 1989.
>
> The remarkable shallowness of the later quote should make It obvious
> that
> Oekonux, of which Merten as the founder and most prominent spokesperson,
> is not based on a "a close observation and analysis" of anything, but
> exactly the sort of smug Utopianism my article is about.
>
>
> > Marx's prescriptions, and his critique of the utopian
> > socialist, seem pretty moot after 200 years of experience, with no
> > revolutionary labour movement in sight.
>
> Ha!
>
> I'm far from a Marx scholar, but it is pretty obvious that Marx's
> views, as well as those of other Socialist theorist including Anarchist
> are much more relevant,  and far more visible, far more influential,
> and far more widely held than "Oekonux" can ever hope to be.
>
> If Marxian and Anarchist labour movements are nowhere in sight, despite
> having at least hundreds of thousands of adherents in there ranks, then
> how irrelevant is "Oekonux?" which is basically less than a dozen
> confused people?
>
> Your conceit here is laughable. Oekonux will never be as large a
> movement
> as even the smallest, most obscure and most cranky branch of Socialism.
>
>
> > Your approach, which seems related to mutualism, seems based on the
> > creation of small commons-oriented enterprises, and it seems to me,
> > precisely what he criticized in the utopians.
>
> You have confused Anarchism and Utopian Socialism. Mutualism
> is a part of Anarchist theory.
>
> As you can see from the actual quotation used, Marx was criticising
> the Utopians, not for commons-oriented enterprises, but because
> they "consider themselves far superior to all class antagonisms."
>
> Specifically he was referring to Utopian socialist opposition to Jacobin
> and Chartist activism.
>
> And that "they habitually appeal to society at large, without
> distinction
> of class; nay, by preference, to the ruling class."
>
> It should be perfectly obvious that Marx's primary Anarchist rivals,
> Prudhon and Bakunin, could not be accused of rejecting class antagonisms
> nor appealing to the ruling class.
>
> You simply have not understood the quote my article uses as a point of
> departure.
>
> But more importantly, you seem to have defensively understood my article
> as saying that Marx, specifically, disapproves of Oekonux, specifically.
> I am not a scholar of Marx, and certainly not something so fishy as
> "Oekonux."
>
> Rather my article is a reflection about how cyclical periods of
> privilege
> cause these sorts of delusional ideologies to come about, later
> nineteenth century Britian produced the Utopian Socialists, and late
> twentieth century America produced the "California Ideology," I am not
> saying these are the same, but rather that they are both products of
> delusion born of a temporary wealth bubble among the working classes
> during a period of international dominance of their nation.
>
> You may have noticed that Marx's opinions about Oekonux are not
> mentioned in the article.
>
>
> > I understand that you have a very radical rhetoric about class
> > struggle,
> > but that doesn't make anything happen per se.
>
> It is the only thing that ever has.
>
>
> > My own approach, which I propose to those monitoring our work at the
> > P2P
> > Foundation, is to closely observe actual social movements and
> > practices,
> > to idenfity those projects with the highest emancipatory potential,
> > including your venture proposals and experiences, and to internetwork
> > them so that they can learn from their successes and failures.
>
> Yes, as you know I appreciate and encourage the work that the P2P
> Foundation does.
>
>
> > We do not deny 'class struggle' (that is for me simply a reality),
>
> Pick a number.
>
> Whatever number you pick, you can find that many quotations of the
> primary
> Oekonux contributors denying class struggle.
>
> i.e. this quote from the smarter Stefan, Stefan Meretz:
>
>   "I am not interested in solutions for some partial groups on costs of
>    others."
>
> Oekonux imagines that we can help the robbed without costing the
> robbers!
>
> Or this idiotic recent exchange:
>
> Stefan responds to the following simple points:
>
>   2) question the role and complicity of the commons within the
>   global economy and put the common stock out of the exploitation
>   of large companies;
>   More generally the whole finance world is based on rent.
> Financialisation
>   is precisely the name of rent that parasites domestic savings.
>
> With this crap:
>
>   "I'm really sorry to say this but once more your anti-Semitic
>    attitude shows through: Single workers may but large companies
>    may not? [...] That argument has an anti-Semitic structure If I had
>    looked for a proof of the anti-Semitic structure of your
>    arguments I had finally found it here"
>    -- Stefan Merten, responding to the points above.
>
> You see? Talking about Class Struggle not only "has nothing to do" with
> Oekonux, but the very concept is antisemitic! Is this the "close
> observation and analysis" you are referring to?
>
>
> > but a harsh rhetoric of resistance is not necessarily the best way of
> > obtaining results,
>
> Yes it is.
>
>
> > Thanks for explaining why your approach should not be considered
> > Utopian?
>
> Because in the context clearly defined in my article "Utopian" refers
> to a socialism that denies class struggle and appeals to the ruling
> class to implement it's proposals.
>
> My approach does neither. It seems you are responding to an argument
> you have inferred on your own from the title of my article than
> to the arguments made in the article itself.
>
> This response is preferably my last discussing Oekonux per se,
> I wish you all goodbye and good luck, however if anything I
> actually mention in my article outside the title is interesting
> to you, I would rather discuss that.
>
> Cheers.
>
>
> --
> Dmytri Kleiner
> editing text files since 1981
>
> http://www.telekommunisten.net
>
>
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> _________________________________
> Web-Site: http://www.oekonux.org/
> Organization: http://www.oekonux.de/projekt/
> Contact: projekt at oekonux.de
>

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