We can be Heroes

[resist_anywhere]

Okay, so we've gotta do something to fix society, or move it closer to the right track at least.  I just can't really decide what the first thing to do should be.  Food not bombs starting this summer.  Treehouse fort starting this summer.  Biking groups starting this summer.  But all of that is just recreational stuff, in my opinion

Comments

[runrevolt]

Market economies are efficient, but the larger consideration is efficient at what? Do we simply want to recreate the trudgery of daily existence in a cooperative fashion, or do we want to establish an entirely different manner of living? Quite possibly, establishing that entirely new existence may be more readily possible by negating the strategy and tactics that perpetuate market economies. I'm not saying not to consider worker-owned cooperatives, but maybe the answer is lying somewhere completely outside of cooperatives, workers, and ownership. Just some thoughts (no alternatives..sorry) i guess.

[resist_anywhere]

Very good point. I was thinking about that the other day... how in the current social scheme, when for example factories develop machines that let them run more efficiently, nobody even seems to consider that this might just mean that people don't have to work so damn much, or we don't have to run the factories as much. Instead, people lose jobs and we mass-produce useless shit

[idreamofpeace68]

hmm

[eponine_scarlet]

i had a dream that you came home and you came to see me at my mother's house.

[resist_anywhere]

That wasn't a dream; you're predicting the future in about two months.

[zer]

There's something to be said in many situations for economic organization into smaller, reactive, adaptable groups that are self-responsible, flexible, and which operate with a minimum of unnecessary bureaucracy, and this I think is the strength of 'markets', rather than the many of the magical market mechanics lauded by marketeer economists in-and-of-themselves (long possible discussion here). So I would maintain that the above can be perfectly communistic: Communism through networks, not pyramids! Anarchist communism just needs a little applied information theory to bring it into the 21st century, then maybe the market thing can be side-stepped or redefined

[resist_anywhere]

That sounds totally awesome... like much of your Canuck life! Yes, I do read your journal a lot, I just usually don't post. Thanks for the input here, though! And yeah, by 'markets' I certainly didn't mean 'force yourself to the possibility of hostile takeovers by huge Western corporations' or anything like that... just economies where individuals or small cooperatives can make their own decisions.

[zer]

Haha, well, my Canuck life isn't all awesome -- I'm living with my partner's parents and it's driving me bloody crazy; well, more like making me depressed and apathetic, but on the other hand I've been developing some great self-discipline in the course of doing freelance graphics work. I feel like a bloody teenager, like I can't make "adult decisions" or express myself how I want because I'm a guest in someone elses' home for way too long, and it clearly isn't -my- home, set up how I want and am comfortable with. I just don't want to bitch too much about it because I don't want to come off as hating Laura's parents -- I don't, I just /really/ don't want to live with them

[resist_anywhere]

Yeah, chris has put forth a lot of good ideas that I like. And you're right, I probably lose more by using the term "markets" than I gain. I'm just stuck in an Eastern European mindset; go figure. I've never read Parecon either.

Anyway, I really feel you in terms of needing to control your own living space. I'm saving up money, at the cost of all kinds of great experiences I could be having in Europe, just because I can't stand the thought of living with my mom while I get back on my feet when I return stateside. And my mom's a totally awesome person... I just need my own place. The new apartment sounds awesome, I'll keep my fingers crossed for you!

[thatnerdygirl]

Hi, love. I take it you're back in the states now? We should have a phone date soon.

[kar_ren]

FNB has been going on here for several years now, one comrade killed by boneheads,one badly stubbed,then they start talkin of the project, TV people come... seminars, demos and pickets, people get detained, sometimes beaten, then released. no radical breakthrough. starting up a worker owned factory or a farm seems a kind of escapism to me -all your efforts would go on sustaining life in this jungle and make your business survive... the pressure is tremendous here but the surface is calm with some outbreaks like protests against buildings demolishing or against building a skyscraper in a playground...these should be supported of cause as well as industrial action - it's not that I am pro-union but they are the few who protest... I don't know a good answer to the question you ask...

[resist_anywhere]

Wow. Where is 'here'?

I can see your point about starting a farm or factory seeming escapism... but the end goal, at least for me, is to have the workers in charge of the entire economy, and that's easier when you can supply your own food. Were I to start a 'business', it would not be with the primary function of making the business survive; it would have the main goal as increasing the quality of life of the people involved.

[kar_ren]

St.Petersburg, Russia.

... but if it doesn't survive the quality of life does not improve...