| Richard Barbrook on Mon, 2 Jun 1997 03:02:58 +0200 (MET DST) |
[Date Prev] [Date Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Date Index] [Thread Index]
| <nettime> Re: The Piran Nettime Manifesto |
Hiya, While I really enjoyed most of the manifesto, I'd like to point out some reactionary concepts lurking behind its ultraleft rhetoric: > >We are still, until this day, rejecting make-work schemes... > >Participate in the Nettime retirement plan, zero work by age 40. On superfical reading, these points seem like a restatement of the old Marxist demand for 'the right to be lazy'. However, once you think about them more deeply, it soon becomes obvious that these points are much closer to the fantasies of rentier capitalism than elements of a social democratic programme. First, the rejection of so-called 'make-work schemes' is grotesque. We live on a continent where a large percentage of our fellow citizens are condemned to poverty and misery because they are prevented from earning an income by contributing their labour to meet social needs. There is absolutely nothing radical about condemning efforts by governments to 'make work' for those excluded and marginalised from society. By rejecting state employment initiatives, the manifesto is in effect supporting the social deprivation being imposed on our fellow citizens by neo-liberalism. Its signatories are guilty of exactly the same sort of social autism displayed by the Californian ideologues! Secondly, the demand for 'zero work by age 40' is similarly elitist. The call for 'zero work' is simply the desire of aristocrats to live off the forced labour of others. Of course, we reject the alienation of work imposed by capitalist organisations. But, unlike aristocrats, we take pride in how we can contribute through our efforts to improving society. As Hegel pointed out, we have only liberated ourselves from feudalism, superstition and other oppressions through our own labour. What we want is forms of work which allow us to express our creativity, autonomy and skills. We also want to be able to earn a decent living without having to work every hour of the day. On Sunday, the French Socialist Party was elected to office on a manifesto whose key demand is the systematic and steady reduction of the working week with no loss of pay. This is a 'make-work scheme' which also liberates some time for everyone. Instead of 'zero work' for an aristocratic elite, the French Socialists are extending the 'right to be lazy' for all workers. As in earlier stages of modernity, social democracy in practice is once again more radical than anarchism in theory. Later, Richard ------------------------------------------------------------------- Dr. Richard Barbrook Hypermedia Research Centre School of Design & Media University of Westminster Watford Road Northwick Park HARROW HA1 3TP http://www.hrc.wmin.ac.uk/ +44 (0)171-911-5000 x 4590 ------------------------------------------------------------------- "...the History of the World is nothing but the development of the Idea of Freedom." - Georg Hegel ------------------------------------------------------------------- --- # distributed via nettime-l : no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a closed moderated mailinglist for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: [email protected] and "info nettime" in the msg body # URL: http://www.desk.nl/~nettime/ contact: [email protected]