robcayman - Network

Criminalize Law

Criminalize Law

dont be an ally, be an accomplice... get some skin in the game and bleed when your neighbours bleedif you sit in a position of privilege,...

dont be an ally, be an accomplice...

get some skin in the game and bleed when your neighbours bleed

if you sit in a position of privilege, and all you do is talk a big game, then you are not helping.

What have you got to lose? your privilege?

Capital cannot save usIf there was a capitalist that owned a bunch of companies and used all the proceeds to fund free housing schemes,...

Capital cannot save us

If there was a capitalist that owned a bunch of companies and used all the proceeds to fund free housing schemes, healthcare funds, and education debt jubilees, while working a regular 9-5 job and was part of a radical union, I would take liberals a lot more seriously... But no

This is a literal impossibility, because it goes against the logic of capital, and undermines the power structure of capitalism.

Liberals need to start learning that Nozick's Utility Monster is not going to liberate the oppressed with the power it is given by the masses. And this is not because the capitalist cannot be benevolent in their intent, it is because of the nature of the power that the capitalist is given. This power is only effective at domination, and the moment it is used to oppose domination, it is rendered useless by all equal and similar power

Normal is a perception of what isn't. Not what is.

Normal is a perception of what isn't. Not what is.

If you are interested, please check out my substack, i will try to post more regularly in the coming...

If you are interested, please check out my substack, i will try to post more regularly in the coming months

https://anarcasper.substack.com/p/a-brief-synopsis-of-power?sd=pf

Capital as Power Meme - What Causes StagflationEconomists really do push the most silly ideas, and pretend that their (lack of) logic...

Capital as Power Meme - What Causes Stagflation

Economists really do push the most silly ideas, and pretend that their (lack of) logic somehow trumps the evidence we can garner from data analysis.

"there’s no convincing evidence that changes in inflation precedes changes in energy growth. So the data suggests that it’s not inflation that drives economic stagnation."
- @blair_fix
https://economicsfromthetopdown.com/2023/01/26/the-cause-of-stagflation/

Absurdist Leftist Quotes - Errico MalatestaWhen systems of domination harm people, we have an ethical obligation to act to subvert,...

Absurdist Leftist Quotes - Errico Malatesta

When systems of domination harm people, we have an ethical obligation to act to subvert, sabotage, dismantle, and destroy those systems of domination.
The obligation is one of self-preservation, as well as species preservation, and ecological preservation.

“we are revolutionaries and insurrectionists because we do not just want to improve existing institutions but to destroy them completely, abolishing every form of domination by man over man, and every kind of parasitism on human labour”
― Errico Malatesta

Small Business is not necessarily Capitalist.The small business owner might be exploiting labour in order to extract profit from the social...

Small Business is not necessarily Capitalist.

The small business owner might be exploiting labour in order to extract profit from the social relation to the means of production, but this is not how the modern capitalist accumulates power.

The modern capitalist accumulates power through the ritual of capitalization. Part of this ritual is the sabotage of production, and the elimination of risk, and the fostering of hype.

The small business owner actually has to work hard to extract miniscule power from the relation to production.

The capitalist accumulates power by simply adhering to the logic of capitalization.

This does not mean that small business owners are not part of the overall problem. But it does mean that they require a separate and different analysis in order to dismantle their power hierarchy.

With Capitalists, the key to dismantling their power is decapitalization. Whereas with small business owners there is no capitalization to dismantle. Instead, a more direct replacement of their power is needed.

Failing to distinguish between these 2 kinds of power will result in solving only a part of the problem, and leaving a vacuum that will be filled by the unsolved part of the problem.

Absurdist Leftist Quotes - Chiara BotticiPrefiguration isn't just about setting up community dual power structures that can challenge...

Absurdist Leftist Quotes - Chiara Bottici

Prefiguration isn't just about setting up community dual power structures that can challenge capitalism and the state's hegemony over social relations. It is also about identifying the values by which an anarchic society would live in horizontal harmony, and living according to those values to the best of our ability right now. We might start imperfectly, because we exist in an imperfect system, but we can adjust and course correct as we improve the world to constantly stay on track to achieving a world without domination.

Original quote:
""If freedom is both the means and the end, then one could also envisage a world free from the very notion of gender as well as the oppressive structures that it generates."
- Chiara Bottici

Capital as Power Meme - Owning Cultural ProductionWhen most people think of capitalism, they think of companies like Apple, or Amazon, or...

Capital as Power Meme - Owning Cultural Production

When most people think of capitalism, they think of companies like Apple, or Amazon, or Tesla, but they rarely extend their analysis to areas such as film. But film is one of the most important areas for capitalists to control, because people dont listed to facts, they listen to stories. And when you control what gets said in the stories, you control the culture that emerges from the consumption of those stories.

"In the interests of profit, capitalists attempt to control the scope and capacity of social creativity through the rights of ownership, which is a type of authority that rests on the greater social system of private property."
- @notes_on_cinema

https://notesoncinema.com/2021/12/14/making-culture-rational-with-power/

#CapitalAsPower

Absurdist Leftist Quotes - Voltairine de CleyreMen (especially white men) should not be relied upon to save others from oppression. Men can...

Absurdist Leftist Quotes - Voltairine de Cleyre

Men (especially white men) should not be relied upon to save others from oppression. Men can be allies, but they must never be saviours. Because when they are entrusted with saving others, they invariably dominate them instead, and pretend it is freedom.

"I never expect men to give us liberty. No, women, we are not worth it until we take it."
- Voltairine de Cleyre

Memetic virality is inversely proportional to the product of subject importance and depth of insight.

Memetic virality is inversely proportional to the product of subject importance and depth of insight.

imagine still using "monopoly on violence" as your preferred definition of the state.Since the rise of capitalism, the need to use...

imagine still using "monopoly on violence" as your preferred definition of the state.

Since the rise of capitalism, the need to use violence on the majority of the population has drastically decreased. Conformity to the authority of the state is almost entirely assured by the coercion of capitalist markets.

And as capitalist power has risen, the state solidified control by alienating people from the ability to self-govern

It is the monopoly on governance that should be central to critiques of the state, not violence.

Capital as Power Meme - Exchanging Domination for DominationThe basis for authority under feudalism was religion. Kings and their subsequent...

Capital as Power Meme - Exchanging Domination for Domination

The basis for authority under feudalism was religion. Kings and their subsequent hierarchies were vested with power because religious institutions maintained that a deity had prescribed that it should be so.

Under Capitalism, the basis for authority can be found in the twin dominators of legal and economic ideology, but as the economic ideology wanes, rather than being replaced by liberatory ideologies, we are seeing the resurgence of religious language in everyday life, and this does not bode well for the future if what we seek is freedom. Because rather than religions of indigenous or marginalized communities, we are seeing the resurgence of the dominant organized religions, especially Christianity.

"If you take away the opiate of wealth, however, people will quickly return to their religious drug of choice. It happened after the Soviet Union collapsed (Pankhurst, 2012). And it seems to be happening within anglophone countries today. The growth engine has slowed and the gains that remain are going almost exclusively to the rich. If these trends continue (and the linguistic patterns that go with them), the future may look less like a post-capitalist utopia, and more like Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale."
- @blair_fix

https://capitalaspower.com/2022/12/fix-have-we-passed-peak-capitalism/

#CapitalAsPower

I miss home sometimes, where the only sounds are of nature.

I miss home sometimes, where the only sounds are of nature.

AI has to be trained, and in order for it to look shiny and clean, people have to be dragged through shit and muck. But let's pretend...

AI has to be trained, and in order for it to look shiny and clean, people have to be dragged through shit and muck. But let's pretend capitalism can be ethically wholesome right? Right?!

https://gizmodo.com/openai-chatgpt-ai-chat-bot-1850001021

to know you never know what you know they know we know you have to just know... till rhythm drops a beat in the system, a wildfire...

to know you never know what you know they know we know you have to just know...
till rhythm drops a beat in the system, a wildfire uncontrollable started from an angry little spark in the darkness. what is this? am I a witness to limitless limits and chains allegorical, tales metaphorical taken for truth? a slue of credit card kings and queens with the means to spin tales and makes sales and own it all? falling leaders so tall on their royal-bought thrones, these clowns are insults, real clowns are funny, and are willing to let me laugh when I give them my money. funny, when it breaks down it's all just us. the silent, the violent, those who don't make a fuss. the loud, the extreme, those stuck in between. and those who don't know they never know what they know, we know. you know?

#poetry

Capital as Power Meme - StagflationWhen prices increase (which is not some magical phenomenon of markets, but the direct action of companies...

Capital as Power Meme - Stagflation

When prices increase (which is not some magical phenomenon of markets, but the direct action of companies SETTING prices) Capitalist firms are engaging in a depth cycle, and in order for this to help them accumulate power, economic growth must be stagnant. But the measures for both economic growth, and inflation, are deeply flawed, and obfuscate the actual dynamics of this process. Fortunately Bichler & Nitzan, and Blair Fix have taken steps to elucidate these complexities.

"the evidence leans in favor of the stagflation thesis. Among the 114 countries studied here, energy growth correlates negatively with inflation among 74 of them — about two thirds of the sample. And overall, the average energy-inflation correlation is negative, at roughly -0.1"
- @blair_fix

https://economicsfromthetopdown.com/2023/01/17/is-stagflation-the-norm/

#CapitalAsPower

Chivalry is not dead... somebody please give me a knife so I can go finish the job.

Chivalry is not dead... somebody please give me a knife so I can go finish the job.

Absurdist Leftist Quotes - Ricardo Flores MagonAccepting the oppression of society or yourself as inevitable is not how you resist...

Absurdist Leftist Quotes - Ricardo Flores Magon

Accepting the oppression of society or yourself as inevitable is not how you resist oppression. You have to KNOW, not just think, that those with Power Over you do not view you as a valid human worthy of respect.

Original Quote:
“Workers are like lemons: When the rich have sucked out all the juice, they throw them in the garbage.”
- Ricardo Flores Magon