Hi all,
Some will find this new open-access book by Jeff Shantz useful and/or interesting.
The hard copy of the book is really cheap. It is also available for free pdf download, but please consider making a donation to the not-for-profit publishers if you decide to get the book this way.
Take care,
Ant
________________________________________
From: [log in to unmask] [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 10 August 2013 23:51
To: Anthony Ince
Subject: Fwd: [Rsn] New Book: "Commonist Tendencies: Mutual Aid Beyond Communism"
----- Forwarded message from [log in to unmask] -----
Date: Fri, 9 Aug 2013 04:52:50 +0000
From: Jeffrey Shantz <[log in to unmask]>
Reply-To: Jeffrey Shantz <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: [Rsn] New Book: "Commonist Tendencies: Mutual Aid Beyond Communism"
To: "[log in to unmask]" <[log in to unmask]>
Greetings,
Some of you might be interested in the new book "Commonist Tendencies:
Mutual Aid Beyond Communism" which is available for free download (or
purchase as a printed volume). Take care.
Solidarity,
Jeff
Commonist Tendencies: Mutual Aid Beyond Communism
by Jeff Shantz
Brooklyn, NY: punctum books, 2013. 108 pages. ISBN-13: 978-0615849782.
OPEN-ACCESS e-book and $11.00 [EUR9.00] in print: paperbound/5 X 8 in.
http://punctumbooks.com/titles/commonist-tendencies/
As capitalist societies in the twenty-first century move from crisis
to crisis, oppositional movements in the global North have been
somewhat stymied (despite ephemeral manifestations like Occupy),
confronted with the pressing need to develop organizational
infrastructures that might prepare the ground for a real, and durable,
alternative. More and more, the need to develop shared infrastructural
resources -- what Shantz terms "infrastructures of resistance" --
becomes apparent. Ecological disaster (through crises of capital),
economic crisis, political austerity, and mass produced fear and
phobia all require organizational preparation -- the common building
of real world alternatives.
There is, as necessary as ever, a need to think through what we, as
non-elites, exploited, and oppressed, want and how we might get it.
There is an urgency to pursue constructive approaches to meet common
needs. For many, the constructive vision and practice for meeting
social needs (individual and collective) is expressed as commonism --
an aspiration of mutual aid, sharing, and common good or common wealth
collectively determined and arrived at. The term commonsim is a useful
way to discuss the goals and aspirations of oppositional movements,
the movement of movements, because it returns to social struggle the
emphasis on commonality -- a common wealth -- that has been lost in
the histories of previous movements that subsumed the commons within
mechanisms of state control, regulation, and accounting -- namely
communism.
In the current context, commonism, and the desire for commons, speaks
to collective expressions against enclosure, now instituted as
privatization, in various realms. While the central feature of
capitalism is the commodity -- a collectively produced good controlled
for sale by private entities claiming ownership -- the central feature
of post-capitalist societies is the commons. These counter-forces have
always been in conflict throughout the history of capitalism's
imposition. And this conflict has been engaged in the various spheres
of human life, as mentioned above. Commonism, (and commonist
struggles), is expressed in intersections of sites of human activity
and sustenance: ecological, social, and ideational. Examples of
ecological commonism include conservation efforts, indigenous land
reclamations and re-occupations (and blockades of development), and
community gardens, to name only a few. Social commons include
childcare networks, food and housing shares, factory occupations, and
solidarity economics (including but not limited to community
cooperatives). Ideational commons include creative commons, opens
source software, and data liberation (such as Anonymous and
Wikileaks). This becomes procreative or constructive. It provides a
spreading base for eco-social development beyond state capitalist
control. It also moves movements from momentary spectacles or
defensive stances or reactive "fightbacks." Commonism affirms and
asserts different ways of doing things, of living, of interacting.
This book engages various commonist tendencies. It examines
communism, including overlooked or forgotten tendencies. It provides
an exploration of primitive accumulation and mutual aid as elements of
struggle. Attention is given to constructive aspects of commonist
politics from self-valorization against capital to gift economies
against the market. It finally speaks to the need of movements to
build infrastructures of resistance that sustain struggles for the
commons. Written by a longtime activist/scholar, this is a work that
will be of interest to community organizers and activists as well as
students of social movements, social change, and radical politics. It
will be taken up by people directly involved in specific community
movements as well as students in a range of disciplines (including
sociology, politics, geography, anthropology, cultural studies, and
social policy). There is no book that offers such a concise, readable
discussion of the issues in the current context, with particular
emphasis on anarchist intersections with communism.
_______________________________________________
Rsn mailing list
[log in to unmask]
https://lists.chalmers.se/mailman/listinfo/rsn
----- End forwarded message -----
