[sudo-discuss] Power continued: the bug in the machinery.

[GtwoG PublicOhOne]

Aestetix & Yo's-

Re. power, continued:

Agreed, language is a fundamental element of control, but it's also a
fundamental element of liberation.  As a language-making and
language-using species, language is foundational to everything we do:
it's the fundamental "building material" of human culture. 

In physics terms, power is the capacity to do work: to convert energy
from one form to another. 

Translated to the human social ecosystem, power is the capacity to have
work done on one's own behalf: to compel the use of natural resources
and labor to convert energy for one's own benefit.  Usually this is done
via the application of stored energy in the form of capital. 

Power in human societies is also the capacity to limit the ability of
others to have work done on their own behalf.  This we do via the law,
such as the Constitution (limiting the powers of government) and statute
law (limiting the powers of private parties such as individuals and
incorporated entities).  We also do it via contracts, backed by contract
law. 

Law and contracts are examples of the use of language to define and
exercise power.  They establish customs and traditions, and together are
for the most part sufficient.  Outgoing presidents leave office
voluntarily, rather than by being escorted out in handcuffs by the
Capitol Police.  Citizens refrain from robbing banks voluntarily, rather
than as a calculation of whether they'll go to prison.  Only if language
fails to exercise its agreed power do we have recourse to power in its
application as force: arresting the recalcitrant president or the bank
robber.

Interestingly, our legal system primarily deals directly with the
_means_ of accumulating or using power, and only indirectly with the
_amount of power_ that is accumulated or used. 

For example the Constitution forbids the executive branch from
legislating or adjudicating, but this has not stopped the vast expansion
of the executive branch and its power to affect (for good or
not-so-good) the lives of individuals.  Statute law forbids slavery and
child labor, but does not forbid the accumulation by the private sector
of a degree of power that in many ways exceeds that of the state
itself.  This is a bug, not a feature, and we should do well to fix it. 

Liberation is the removal of oneself from the influences of illegitimate
power, or the removal of the illegitimate power itself, expressed not
only in language but in other forms such as painting, poetry, music, and
public celebration.  But liberation is only a beginning, not an
endpoint: nature abhors vacuums, and human nature doesn't much like
power vacuums.  In the absence of one illegitimate power, the failure to
construct limiting legitimate power usually leads directly to a new
illegitimate power arising.  Somalia and Afghanistan are the paradigm
cases of "laissez-faire utopia", with warlords, pirates, and fiefdoms
exercising brutal power over individuals, restrained only through mutual
warfare. 

One of the primary tasks of a movement for progressive social change
(whatever ideology you want to call it or associate it with) is to take
on the issue of the _amount of power_ held by various actors in
society.  And the goal we probably all agree on, is that the _amount of
power_ that any given individual or institution or entity can hold,
should be subject to checks and balances, and ultimate limits.

-G.




On 13-05-03-Fri 11:30 PM, aestetix wrote:
> You've opened a can of worms here :)
>
> Since elucidated discussion seems to be the modus operandi lately, I
> have a few thoughts on this matter that are worth contributing. Feel
> free to ignore at your pleasure (free listening is just as important
> as free speech).
>
> I think that the two key elements of your essays, food and power, are
> rather interchangeable depending on the contexts. It's (hopefully)
> obvious why we need food. Power in a more abstract sense is
> fascinating to me, though. Other words that come to mind are drive,
> charisma, persuasion, but also intellect, and most important, control.
>
> IMHO, one of the most fundamental elements of control is language, as
> shared patterns are effectively a way to communicate and attain
> various levels of self-mastery. An easy way to experience this is to
> try to understand a foreign language: there might be some hints of
> familiarity within the chaos, and as we find them, it's a bit like
> setting markers around, and using the markers to control the direction
> of your ultimate understanding. You can extend that to vocabulary and
> concepts as well. One of the hallmarks of a good education is the
> ability to curse someone out without using the generic "fuck shit
> damn" slurs.
>
> Language is composed of words, symbols which point to meanings, and
> one of the most interesting set of words is our names. And you all can
> guess where I'm going with this one ;)
>
> Hail Eris,
> aestetix
>
> PS: it might be worth doing another cryptoparty soon.
>
> On 5/3/13 7:58 PM, GtwoG PublicOhOne wrote:
>
>
> > 2)  Where the power is, and where it isn't.
>
> > Now we come to the proletariat and the lumpenproletariat.
>
> > For this, credit also goes to a good friend of mine who I won't
> > name here, but who's welcome to name him/herself if s/he so
> > chooses: s/he got me thinking down this trail a few months ago.
>
> > The proletariat is the working class: basically defined as people
> > who have full-time jobs or at least jobs that provide sufficient
> > income for the core necessities (shelter, clothing, food,
> > transportation, sanitation, communication), but who have little or
> > no ownership stake. This includes people who are in business for
> > themselves, but earning a working class income: they own their
> > employment, but their economic wellbeing is at the same level as
> > that of a wage-worker.
>
> > The lumpenproletariat is the level below that: basically defined
> > as people whose employment is marginal at best, and whose access to
> > the basic necessities is frequently interrupted in some way.  The
> > unemployed, homeless, couch-surfers (another form of
> > homelessness), people who live at the margins of the law in order
> > to survive, and people who earn their livings on criminal activity.
> > This also includes wage-workers whose wage income is not sufficient
> > to provide their basic necessities from month to month: they have
> > jobs, but their economic wellbeing is at the same level as that of
> > someone who's marginally employed at best.
>
> > Decades ago, the Bay Area left/radical community made the deadly
> > strategic error of embracing the (essentially Maoist) analysis that
> > the lumpenproletariat is the revolutionary class.  This error
> > continues to this day, in the ideology of Black Block tactics,
> > which are founded on the idea that expressing rage and provoking
> > police over-reaction will somehow spark The Revolution.
>
> > The very same tactic in more obviously violent form pops up in the
> > ideology of the extreme right: such as the Hutaree, a group that
> > was busted by the FBI for planning to shoot a bunch of cops and
> > then set off bombs at their funerals, in the attempt to provoke
> > martial law and thereby set off a "revolution" from the extreme
> > right.
>
> > But here's the nexus of the problem:
>
> > To the oligarchy, the lumpenproletariat is disposable: their roles
> > in production and consumption are so minimal that they can be
> > totally disregarded.  They have NO power.  N-O power.  As
> > individuals or as any kind of collectivity or class.
>
> > When a social movement identifies with the lumpenproletariat
> > and/or attempts to organize the lumpenproletariat, the movement
> > effectively short-circuits its efforts into something that is
> > inherently doomed to failure.  They may as well be trying to
> > organize the squirrels on the Cal Berkeley campus to strike for
> > better teaching-assistant salaries. How seriously do you think the
> > UC Regents would take the threat of a squirrel strike?
>
> > The proletariat is where the power is: the power to produce and
> > consume at the level that drives the engine of oligarchy, is also
> > the power to refuse consent in a meaningful way.
>
> > The power of the proletariat takes two forms:
>
> > One, the power to remove themselves from the oligarch's engines of
> > production: by going on strike (which translates to the power of
> > collective bargaining), by going into business for themselves, and
> > by developing alternatives to conventional capitalism such as
> > cooperatives and other forms of production that subordinate capital
> > to labor.
>
> > Two, the power to remove themselves from the oligarch's
> > consumption matrix: by boycotts (consumer strikes), by
> > anti-materialist or "simple living" principles that reduce
> > consumption levels (the equivalent of consumer general strikes), by
> > shifting their consumption to alternative institutions such as
> > coops, credit unions, and small local producers (e.g. buying
> > veggies at the farmers' market rather than Safeway), and very
> > importantly for _us_ as hackers/makers/etc., the power to build
> > for our own use.
>
> > This is real power.  It's the power that makes the oligarchs quake
> > in their boots and have nightmares.  And it's the power that gives
> > the oligarchs strong incentive to keep us distracted, digressed,
> > and disempowered by wasting our time trying to organize a squirrel
> > strike.
>
> > -G.
>
> > _______________________________________________ sudo-discuss
> > mailing list sudo-discuss at lists.sudoroom.org
> > http://lists.sudoroom.org/listinfo/sudo-discuss
>
>
>


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