Re: <nettime> From Deng & Thatcher 1984 to the Hong Kong 2014 OCCUPY

[Brian Holmes <bhcontinentaldrift@gmail.com>]

On 10/05/2014 03:13 PM, Flick Harrison wrote:

> Your support for Democracy in Hong Kong might be met with some
> opposition here, from those unwilling to distinguish it from capitalism.

Of course, I can well imagine, and I wanted to provoke exactly them with 
exactly that.

My support first goes to the people who, whatever their naivete may be 
(I can't judge that myself) are taking such great risks to defy their 
oligarchical rulers. Second, my support goes to attempts to push for 
substantial democracy, and not a managed facade. Third, my support goes 
to those whose experience organizing in the streets may well stand 
themselves and others in good stead, whatever the outcome of this contest.

I think the rise of authoritarianism in the capitalist West, as well as 
its modernization in capitalist China, says a lot in favor of a 
distinction between democracy and capitalism. Democracy names the 
aspiration to the freedom of expression for all, and to its use in the 
collective creation of law. Similarly, communism names the aspiration to 
equality and its realization in the form of well-being for everyone. The 
fact that these words are used by political systems that do not fulfill 
those aspirations should neither invalidate the words, nor the 
aspirations, nor the search for the specific reasons why those 
particular political systems have failed.

Hong Kong, like its peer the former British colony of Singapore, 
represents the ideological figure of pure free-market capitalism in 
Asia. The point of my post was to indicate the degree to which the 
return of Hong Kong was deliberately used by the Chinese communist party 
as a transformative agency in order to produce the authoritarian 
neoliberalism of present-day China. When the youth of that city revolt 
against the imposition of the kind of pseudo-democracy most useful to 
authoritarian capitalism - because that's exactly what they are 
revolting against, managed democracy with figureheads appointed by the 
oligarchy - then I submit that something important is happening, for the 
city itself and for the world. The rise and solidification of 
authoritarian capitalism is being challenged.

The critique of capitalism has become much more difficult today, now 
that there is no really existing communism to which one could refer, nor 
any powerful communist or anarchist insurgencies either. To simply be 
"against capitalism" is to stake one's position on a void. In this 
context, experiments with the demand for a substantial democracy have my 
respect. Particularly when they are understaken at great risk, in the 
face of one of the most authoritarian governments on earth.

There will be other experiments in the future, perhaps less prone to 
manipulation or hollow victories. And I'll support them too, and 
hopefully join them, with an even greater desire to understand what's at 
stake.

best, Brian


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