<nettime> Double Movement Fulfilled

[Brian Holmes via nettime-l <nettime-l@lists.nettime.org>]

Among the confusing aspects of contemporary US politics is the new
workerism of the right, represented by JD Vance with his silver tongue and
endless hillbilly elegy. We do not expect right-wing elites to cry for poor
people, but that's what they're doing. What is going on?

Karl Polanyi described the present situation eighty years ago. Capitalism,
he said, grows by leaps and bounds until it creates a world market. But in
so doing, it causes such cultural alienation, personal harm and
environmental destruction that it produces a second movement of withdrawal
and self-protection within national confines. This is what we see in the US
today.

The globalization of manufacturing and trade has been both rapid and
extreme. Everyone is aware of the consequences on employment and wages, but
what about culture? The most recent economic expansion, driven by the
Internet, has brought cosmopolitan capitalist culture into every village,
small town and rural region. Anyone whose social position was based on the
stability and channeling of others' desire - such as a parent, a teacher or
a priest - is threatened with loss and insignificance. Anyone who could not
handle the temptations of capitalist culture - up to and including fentanyl
- has gotten badly hurt by now. Collective institutions, and even
landscapes, went into serious decline. And then the floods and fires began.
It's now impossible, even for rich people in cities, not to see the extent
of the damage that the 1990s globalization of both technology and culture
has wreaked on everyday life.

JD Vance was able to make bank in Silicon Valley, which is what capitalism
expects: take the most capable and then corrupt them absolutely. However,
once the double movement is fulfilled, a new opportunity opens up for the
absolutely corrupt: They can cynically play with the complaints of those
who have been battered and enraged by capitalism. This was the message of
the Republican National Convention. Left-wing social promises will now be
served on a combination plate featuring racist authoritarianism and
religion in equal proportions. It does not matter that the combination is
unviable in reality. The need to believe in it is absolute, like a force of
nature. It can be manipulated to produce a nationalist paroxysm, probably
culminating in war as it did the last time, when the Germans and other
national cultures went down the fascist path.

We had a memorable nettime debate on these issues in 2016. I and several
others brought up Polanyi's arguments from The Great Transformation to
explain what was happening with Brexit and Trump. No, we were told by some
strident anarcho-feminist, these people are white supremacist
patriarchalist fascists, you have to fight them, that's all you need to
know. You have to beat them down, and the only explanation they deserve is
that they are assholes.

That kind of simplistic, essentializing rhetoric is not as radical as it
looks. It has gone mainstream. The center left has almost nothing to say
about the emergency situation it has helped to create, except stop the
fascists! Save democracy! The fascists, on the other hand, have a lot to
say about the problems they face, the kind of life they want, and what
stands in their way. They are the reality community - they actually talk
about their realities with a view to changing them, whereas all our side
really wants is for the economy to grow again. We are not able to genuinely
question the current mode of development. Due to the absence of anything we
can really believe in, we on the left are highly likely to see the fascist
solutions put into operation, and not just in the US.

Biden was a zombie politician repeating the programs of Obama, Clinton and
Kennedy. Under his "guidance" we would have war with China distracting us
from collapse into climate chaos. Can Kamala Harris be any different? Not
if people keep saying the stupid things they have been saying since 2016,
that's for sure.

The world faces extraordinary challenges, and it has responded by girding
for war. This can't be changed through any invocation of anarchism or
libertarianism, which now look very similar indeed (individualist
philosophies disclaiming any need for social structures and collective
solutions). In this extremely dangerous situation, all factors have to be
recognized and analyzed, then a strategy has to be put into play. There is
no way to continue just pushing people off the table and holding them down
so the successful races and classes can go on enjoying modernism - that's
the Israeli solution, it does not work with the Palestinians and it won't
work with the industrial classes either. The left has to learn to talk with
the people it has left in the lurch, both economically and culturally. It
has to propose an aspirational mode of development that can include those
people, alongside and with its core constituencies. Above all it has to
describe a believable future, which is neither about sinking into
meaningless poverty and cultural alienation, nor about wild technological
growth with no guarantees for those left behind. We need a vision of a
stable and flourishing world, far from the extremes of Polanyi's double
movement.

In theory, that's not so difficult. Under democratic capitalism, it's
almost impossible. But the stakes are high. Let's ask a lot from Kamala
Harris, Keir Starmer, etc. All we have to lose is a stiflingly hot
authoritarian future.
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