Revolution and Complex Systems Session 5 - … · Course outline Revolution and Complex Systems Session 1: Introduction to Complex Systems Session 2: Smash the System – creating

Revolution and Complex SystemsSession 5:

Tame the System

Course outline

Revolution and Complex Systems

Session 1: Introduction to Complex SystemsSession 2: Smash the System – creating and harnessing chaosSession 3: Erode the System – building the new world in the shell of the oldSession 4: Escape the System – affect and surviving oppression Session 5: Tame the System – reforms without reformismSession 6: Bringing it All Together – a trajectory for revolution


SOCIAL DEMOCRACY


● State managing capitalism● Liberté, égalité, fraternité –

● freedom of the individual● equality under the law● charity, altruism

● International human rights law

Social democracy

● Functions through: ● Representative democracy – political parties● Growth and full employment● Keynesian economics – Welfare state,

intervention in economy. ● Class compromise (unions) – balance of forces

● 'Reformism'


Pros● Generally seen as legitimate ● Represents largest amount of people (theoretically)● Incremental changes are easier for people to handle● Safe, legality, not all can do riskier activity

Cons● Slow change● Surface problems are tackled, but not root problems● Some reforms are reversible ● Electoral movements often demobilised after elections● The state often contributes to the problems we're fighting (police violence, capitalism etc)


● Why does social democracy reproduce capitalism?● Can we stop this?

● Why is electoral politics ultimately demobilising? ● Can we prevent this?

Questions:

Are 'non-reformist reforms' possible?

● Can we use social democracy to create:● rapid change?● irreversible change?


Elections and mobilisation


Communism

floating signifier (empty signifier)

=

dog

kennelleash

bone vet

Dog

vs

● Community councils?● Voluntary work?● Gift exchange?

OR

● Gulags?● Genocide?● State surveillance?


Socialism

Commons

Future

Network power:● ability to reprogram networks● ability to articulate (switch)

different networks

Reprogram: change the associations of a concept, like 'socialism', 'the commons' or 'future' etc

Switch: link it into other floating signifiers (Freedom? Peace? Prosperity?)


● Reactivates cognitive schema for leader (doctor, nurse)

● Schemas refreshed, neural pathways reinforced.

● Perpetuates system which produced that power (of white men etc) in the first place!

● Positive feedback loop can be broken by abandoning leaders

Leader

● White● Old ● Male● Heterosexual● Cisgender● Abled● Neurotypical etc● Individual

Faciality


Increase control that an agent (person, group) has over its environment (community), as well as expanding their awareness of this (learning)

“Empowerment is a measure of both the control an agent has over its environment, as well as its ability to sense this control.

… If two or more agents share an environment, so that their actions all influence the state of the world, then their empowerment becomes intertwined”

Empowerment

Cognition is: embodied, embedded, enactive, extended and affective

● bodily practice (embodied)● within communities (embedded) ● using the techniques of self-governance (enactive)● giving conceptual and material tools (extended), and● for that practice to be emotionally engaging and relevant to their lives (affective)


Adaptive cycle

Conservation

Release

Reorganisation

Growth

Connectedness

Potential / capital


Revolt and Remember

Mohammed Bouazizi self-immolation

Arab Spring

'Memory' of culture, media, governments, etc.

Sidi Bouzid protests

Tunisian revolution


Pressure valve 1) – elections

Election rearranges Constituencies

House of Commons and Downing Street

British state political system – (Lords, civil service departments, courts, etc)

Anger at local MP collapses their support


Pressure valve 2) – reform

Strike – over into release (chaotic phase)

government reform – back into rapid growth or reorganisation phase

State, business and dominant ideology – ensures reorganisation accords with state process, capitalist needs


Can we prevent election demobilisation?

● Reprogramming floating signifiers

● Empowerment

● Pressure valve 1: elections

● Pressure valve 2: reforms


Coupling with capitalism


“The executive of the modern state is but a committee for managing the affairs of the whole bourgeoisie.”

- Karl Marx


“[Capitalism] is not overthrown, but is on the contrary strengthened by the development of social reforms."

- Rosa Luxembourg


● Miliband: the State is an instrument of “that class which owns and controls the means of production and which is able, by virtue of the economic power thus conferred upon it, to use the state as its instrument for the domination of society”

Focus on interpersonal relationships – could work for us – socialist state possible?

● Poulantzas: the State is “neither the subject of history nor a mere instrument-object of the dominant class, it is, from the point of view of its class nature, the condensation of a class relationship of forces”

Focus on 'objective' structures – no room for agency – socialist state not possible?

Poulantzas vs Miliband

Agree: the State aims to support the capitalist class through maintaining equilibrium of capitalist production

Network of Agents vs

Network of Roles


Miliband

media

economic

politics

education

Poulantzas

Working class

Ruling class


Living systems and coupling

● Relative autonomy of the state – coupled systems● The state is a condensation of the class struggle and is contested – learning system


Capital needs: ● Laws to maintain property rights and contracts. ● Stability in which to ensure consumption and production and distribution. ● Workers and consumers. ● State's power of reprogramming

State needs: ● Tax revenues ● Jobs● Compliant populace

Ecological dominance

PATH DEPENDENCE“small or insignificant events or decisions result in an organizational or institutional change that persists over long periods of time and that limits the range of options available to actors in the future”

Phase I - pre-formation Phase II - formation Phase III - lock-in


Scope/range of variety


Can they be de-coupled?

1) If the state is a 'condensation of forces', can a state in a capitalist society be anything but pro-capitalist?2) If the state is a learning system, having learned to benefit the ruling class, can this memory be erased?


Rapid and irreversible changes


● Reform the state so quicker decisions can be made? Lose 'checks and balances' i.e. negative feedback loops

● Cascades

Rapid:


ThermostatAudio feedback

● 'Positive' ● Self-amplifying● Growth / decay

● 'Negative'● Self-regulating● Homeostasis

Accelerationism? Degrowth?


scale

threshold?

regime 1

regime 2

economicspolitics tech

threshold?

threshold?

threshold?

threshold?

threshold?

threshold?

threshold?

threshold?national

municipal

local

domainThresholds Matrix



municipal

national

local

politics economics technology

unemployment

benefits policy

unrest

household income

Police repression

social movement

rate of tech change

rate of job creation

automation of jobs

Police repression

Justice / security policy

Consumer electronics purchased

working hours policy

Political engagement

Strength of working class

business profits


● None (steady change)● small change in variable leads to small change in

output● Step change

● small change in slow variable leads to jump in output. Original position can be returned to

● Hysteresis (lag)● after jump, to return to original position requires

greater force in opposite direction● Irreversible

● original position cannot be returned to without taking a different route [diagram = deeper hysteresis, hand not strong enough to push OR does it destroy the original attractor?]

Thresholds


Metastability

Multiple thresholds within a basin.


State and transition model


State and transition model – degrowth

Build local renewable energy infrastructure

Step change

Green taxes

LEGEND

dynamics without action

with action

Basic income Debt audit/jubilee

Invest in solidarity economy

Irreversible

Hysteresis / Lag

Reduce the working week

End private sector investment

Reduce advertising

CO2 caps

Consumption (for-profit)

Households free of debt

Growth Climate disaster

Lots of free time

Strong alternative economy

For profit overtakes

Self-reliance from business

Re-privatised energy

Debt encumbered people

Overworked, poor

Education on necessity and skills

Lower growth, cleaner air

Local democratic control, checks and balances

Documents

Revolution and Complex Systems Session 5 - … · Course outline Revolution and Complex Systems Session 1: Introduction to Complex Systems Session 2: Smash the System – creating