Femciolente's Hyperstition

I did! In fact it's a text that took a while to be finished. It was first published on my Substack, you can check out the original version there.

By doing so, the Lumpen should be recognized as one key thing : not a vector of narrative, not an actor of progression, not the subject of the revolutionary, but purely a concentration of insurrection.  Generally, conceiving the Lumpen as a replacement of the proletariat in Marxist analysis is an error the ones before me have made, and one we have already debunked. In certain senses, here we revert to certain original affirmations done by Engels and Marx, and we do so by recuperating the concepts with pride : - The Lumpen do NOT have a class consciousness : Correct ! The lumpen considerably lack the capacity to develop class interest, not due to some classit conceptions of some essentialist incapability, but out of pure interest : Misery cannot be actively mitigated and advanced, and the creation of a progressive narrative towards that is simply not conceivable for the average homeless person, devoid of all possibility towards petty property or even labour stabilisation. Nowadays, even the proletariat lacks a directive line to battle, but the insurrection deep inside the wretched hearts of the Lumpen can be prepared in advance for any confrontation towards the becoming-autonomous process that is so desired. - The Lumpen are purely destructive : Absolutely. This radicality comes from the already mentioned need for unmitigated abolition and not compromise. The ethos of action of the Lumpenproletariat is the affirmation of non-exploitation, and hence, only destruction of the present state of things can actively continue their insurrectionary process. - The Lumpen are disconnected with reality : And that creates the basis of their Nomadhood, a Lumpenomadhood. As their travels through the borderlands of control and self regulation, seeking to avoid or even escape the certain aim and pretended omnipotence of the state, the Lumpen had to become not vectors of the prescribed real, but of their own projection. Life at the bottom of the barrel is harsh, but It can be mitigated by actively pursuing a project outside of what is experienced. Not a form of escapism, but a form to arm a population with the possibility of trying to project themselves onto their desires, far away from the biopower that so crushes them perpetually. - The Lumpen have no constraints or restrictions to their praxis : In reality, the Lumpen do not do what is commonly conceived as “praxis”. As said previously, the Lumpen do not follow the standards of prescriptive actions and a directive attitude. Instead, as the Invisible Committee would come to conceive popular insurrections, the Lumpen engage purely in a “becoming-autonomous” form, as they seek to out-advance the processes of Panoptilumpenism that restricts their potential Anarchoscape from it. The Lumpen are, in this sense and continuing their definition as liberated subjects, not restricted to a form of actions, as their lives and collective violence against Empire and the leviathan of the cyber control society are unto itself extreme and unravelled expressions of insurrection. In many areas, the Lumpen-On-Lumpen exploitation has become a primary form of production. Taking the example of my home country of Mexico, the cartels have become by 2023 the 5th largest direct employer in the country, without taking into account the un-official trading partners and oppressed local communities subordinated to their will. They present an interesting case, as Panoptilumpenism is here materialised in the form of a set of previously Lumpen individuals conforming an administrative statist biopolitical entity that transforms these individuals into the role of the common Bourgeoisie. The difference ? Well, these elements lack the established uniformity of the bourgeoisie, as well as not being able to be the “official” property owners, as the logic of competition is very well applied to the rivalry between the state and its monopoly on regulation, and the unmitigated commodity production of the cartels.

The main victims here are the indigenous Lumpen populations, people who work completely on the most extreme forms of labour imaginable. Its cartoonish intensity makes it some of the harshest and most direct elements to consider when dealing with the Lumpen in majority conditions. Yes, almost a majority of the Mexican population, both rural and urban, are informal workers lacking any form of security and stability that the statist world would have other societies used to. This makes Mexico a country that, in its horrendous shift towards a neoliberal logic of market advancement and a direct war against what could be 60% of the population, is directed by the Lumpen logic of resistance, but Panoptilumpenism and the biopolitical forms of repression that we encounter so absurdly diversified and atomized nowadays wins over them.

As in many other countries, Lumpenization is official policy, and the violence that comes with it constitutes nothing but a will to put down further the subordinated oppressed and alienated groups, is also the logic to its own demise. The inter-connectivity of today’s social relations via total cybernetic methods has turned these complex webs of exploitation into a system so  heavy of its own weight that these reproductions cannot be sustained for too long. Nowadays, what it means to be lumped has radically shifted, and its focus and activity too. Yes, we can retain the JNL’s vision of the Lumpen baseline consisting of prostitutes, day labourers, ethnic minorities, segregated populations, the workers exploited by the proletariat AND the conjunction of class society as a politica-managerial and eventually cybernetic entity. But with the new virtual-colonial relationship that has sprouted from the corpse of our service-minded economic engineering, it is hard to not see Panoptilumpenism as nothing more than an extension of the disciplinary control society, a subset of Biopolitical applications, and unto itself, the expression of technocapital’s regulatory and directive capacities. Technocapital has grown to extend the uniforming violence of biopower to its economic activity via entrepreneurship, and ends up totalizing the slight imperfection, or at that perfection, of the life of a homeless, jobless or lifeless individual. Panoptilumpenism is a cybernetic socio-economic prison that creates unilateral oppression to indiscriminate groups of unrelenting capacities. The source of the discontent of the many with our current capitalism is rooted in that character of its machinic activity. We cannot really comprehend how truly destructive Panoptilumpenism can end up being for the social fabric of this withering material condition, but it most certainly will represent itself as the future order of our lives : Panoptilumpenism will most likely not stop at the Lumpen’s livelihoods.

The conception of the Lumpenproletariat as pure “leeches” or “burdens” as Marx would have them for most of the development of his theory, does nothing but reaffirm, and in a sense justify, the virtual-colonial exploitation of one of the most miserable elements ever conceived by humanity. Sadly, at no point could the JNL’s perspective become a majority in any capacity, and even intellectual circles have fallen off with the idea of considering such an avant-garde scene as relevant or possibly interesting for the furthering of class analysis. Our modern Technocapital advancements have proven these conceptions of the Lumpenproletariat as an ever expanding entity and conception, one that is really up to date with the tendencies and evolutions of the market and the productive forces subordinated to it. Lumpenization as a process is, inherently, a modern phenomenon. Capitalism devolved into a commodity driven mechanism at the middle of the 20th century, as the ones like Debord denoted. The construction of such a strong baseline and spectacular culture towards the commodity itself was only done once the development of the modules of capitalism settled and could bring out a certain “abundance” of said commodities. Via this, there was a certain death of the industrial core of capitalism. Not in its literal sense, capitalism  had retained and even amplified its destructive industrial capacities and vision, but because the directive threat of both the liberal art of governing and the becoming-sentient technocapital advancements had done were no longer centred on pure industry, it was accompanied by more than purely that. As this, the 80’s and the beginning of neoliberal uniformist globalisation began the process of the creation of the service economy, now with the working force of the western first world being driven towards the new disciplinary form of embankment : the cubicle and the office. Via this, the fragmentation of what was the proletariat began diving directly into the realm of biopower itself : no longer was pure labour alienation the issue for these now obsolete western factory workers, the whole recuperated war machine of the state and its newly developed labour controlling arms are purposely transforming the scenarios in which these labourers operate, and hence delving them deeper into what can only be considered an entropic mess of an economic transformation. The welfare state, now that the productivist social democratic compromise had become completely overridden by total business ontology, the logical step was to turn the lives of these producers into one of total alienation inside the realm of non-existent production and pure data recuperation and management. The 21st century, via its enormous decentralisation and increased fluidity in the forms that Technocapital seeks to take in the larger and broader scheme of things, began creating a new form of production, inside and at the same time outside of the service economy : the previously mentioned data collecting in favour of the concentrating and newly appearing “Rentier bourgeoisie”, as B. Ceka would come to call them. For her, these newly uses of data in order to reinforce the structural integrity and reach of technocapital itself are nothing but a new form of labour exploitation, directly via the involvement of this newly imprisoned proletarian force, but also by the Lumpenproletariat, primary subjects of such experimentation and dabbling. You see, the Lumpenization that takes place by both the death of the industrial 1st world and its impossibility of incorporation into the new service economy is a direct consequence and desired result of the development of new forms of capitalism. Via this, we can encounter the programmed death of the service economy, one in which Panoptilumpenism is applied into its full potential force.

No longer can we suffice for data management, that data must be used, it must be rhizomatically consumed into the new apparatuses of the internet and AI. Seka retains the core parts of the Landian fear of expansion of Technocapital towards “sentience” and autonomy, and applies it to a deeply Lumpenizing realisation : no longer is any part of the population free from violent forms of both control and exploitation, in the most decentralised forms possible to conceive. 

Andrew Culp detested the Rhizome for what it had become, a past realisation of what now is recuperated at the hands of the capitalist directors of the technocapital enterprise. The rhizomatic structure of what Deleuze wanted was now realised, in the entirely worst way possible. The hand of the rising Lumpenproletariat is being forced by the same theorist that could be key to their self-immediate Anarchoscape from the eye of the cybernetic biopower now applied deeply to its own core.

We can conceive of the business ontology that had  developed alongside technocapital, has now gained speed and was faced by much less Lumpen-Guided resistance, meaning that it was now more ingrained than ever in our era of cybernetic biopower. This development led to the pursuit of the delegation of economic responsibility, one in which the role of the Panoptilumpenist actions of the neoliberal economy became the forming of the “entrepreneur” in every factor of the population, but most concretely inside the Lumpen. The Lumpen, via this new form of virtual-colonial expansion, become their own responsibles for their economic activity, essentially starting what many like to call “the gig economy”, but what in reality is nothing but the true decentralisation of the realm of data management and its business-ontological application.

“ Terrible things happen daily of which we are not aware of, hidden under the pretense of normality and coherence of the world you and I are forced to experience. Together, but yet so far away, a digital sea of modern colonization exists. All that is hidden is understood to exist as oppression, and that oppression is but the systematic death once the inevitable misery catches up to the rowdy prosperity of the cybernetical un-friendship orders.  “

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What became projected as a refusal to expand on the different forms which the oppressed populations of the world took, the Lumpenproletariat has always been nothing more than a slur. The Lumpen  have seen their potential, actions and even existence reduced to a mere splinter of class society under the classical Marxist framework, and even more reductive under a liberal scope. 

The liberal status quo seeks to uniform these outliers, to create a non-porous, fully glossy and brand new form of governance that does not imply the existence of the faults and burdens called Lumpen. And the Marxist seeks to merely fault it for the errors of its own actions. What both of these conceptions have in common is simply their will to reduce struggle to a mere flaw, forgetting the moments and large periods in which the Lumpenproletariat took apart of, not as the subject of a movance or drive towards a narrative goal, but more-so as the undisputed net losers of the movements of the societies we trap  our thought around. The construction of a “better world” under the progressive stance implies the wiping down of the impurities the liberated subject of the  Lumpen are : there cannot be a better world for those  at the bottom of the existence of the present state of things, and the future ones if we try to be cynical. Engels retains the crown of anti-lumpen sentiment, very early on embarking in hatred towards a group he barely defined in order to assert the position of the proletariat as the unique pawn in their path of the progress of history. Nothing constructive comes from the Lumpenproletariat, and this understanding leads to conceiving them as historically “scum” and “opportunists”, friends of reaction and the status quo. The myth of the Lumpen representing the outdated populations of the early-modern urban development is something that persists nowadays. Mercenaries, crooks and “parasites” are what Engels, and then Marx, meant and explicited by the Lumpen, entities devoid of revolutionary character, outside of the glorious proletariat and most importantly, in opposition to it. In many regards, the reductionism that Marx and Engels apply to this strata of the population  is clearly tied to the events they analyzed ever since 1848 and the many abuses the working population suffered because of this undisclosed exploitative Lumpenproletariat. The vagueness of what they even imply by Lumpen at this stage makes for it to become the quick insult many cement the term as, even when Marx’s own conception evolves when Capital arrives. His true, real critique of political economy outside of the realizations he has on the conditions of the revolting bodies involving themselves in England, France and other areas of the  European theater, comes with the realization of a new concept that will be very useful following up : the  one of Lumpenization, or understood as the process that turns sectors of a viable population towards a much more precarious, fluid and non-protected existence, basically creating a larger aflux of Lumpen.

Efforts from the capitalist systems turned the varied populations of an evolving society into elements of what he saw as being the “exploitative degeneracy” that constituted the element to oppose inside his notion of the Lumpen, making it not a desirable process, but more so a subjected one with the whole entire violence of the state and capital behind it all. A scheme so simple in its perpetuation that it gets overlooked and assimilated into the “natural” processes of capital, alongside  commodity production and fetichisation. His opposition to the Lumpen is, as commonly described, political. But nonetheless, I see his opposition as coming from a severe lack of will towards a deep understanding of  outside regards, or as Ernesto Laclau would put it in this same topic, "the limits of Marxist determinism“ . In short, Marxism, as the established framework of analysis and understanding of class society guided by the proletarian socialist meta-narrative, has no room, nor want, to establish a thoughtful consideration of what the Lumpen REALLY are, outside of all value and moralistic judgement many engage with nowadays. The conditions of such a shift and change in the perspective of the Lumpen should be set, first of all, on the basis of a “non-marxist” framework, one that does not establish a subject for revolutionary progression above all other possible material analysis. 

Combating the many forms the systematic train of thought Marxism has historically represented comes in the originally Marxist realization of the end of the “labour movement”. The late Paul Mattick essentially considered the labour movement to be “dead” and non-existent in the modern times of the postwar world. No longer could the forms of organization of the working class combat capitalism the same way it once used to. No longer can the proletariat unite under the thought of Marx or Lenin in order to advance the  progression of social systems. No longer could liberation be achieved by the same old conceptions of revolution we had carried around essentially since the early Fourrieriusts. As he would put it : “The labour movement preceded Marxian theory and provided the actual basis for its development. Marxism became the dominating theory of the socialist movement because it was able convincingly to reveal the exploitative structure of capitalist society and simultaneously to uncover the historical limitations of this particular mode of production.” On this same basis, Marxism was able to grasp the concept of leading progressive revolution in terms of using a same, concrete and particular subject, one not free but alienated and exploited, with enough potential to set itself free and dissolve the forms that put it there to begin with. But no  longer can that be seen as a coherent labour movement, and the flaw comes with this essentialization of The Proletariat, the utmost important cog and at the same time, the main pawn to the creation of Marxist analysis.

With this in mind, many properly Marxist groups through the (mostly) modern history of class struggle (1960’s-80’s) have undertaken this fallacious class consideration, and taken on a Lumpen defense, one that does confront the previously mentioned un-legitimate attacks from the early socialist revolutionaries. Denning, Fanon and even Marcuse embark in the commonly found “revolutionary potential of the Lumpen”, explaining its colonial history as being the “radicals of the radicals”, a sort of unmeasured group full of revolutionary fervour, similar to what the classical proletariat can achieve if set  under the line of class consciousness. While these defenses have served as the proliferation of the term in a less commonly conceived pejorative notion of the Lumpenproletariat, they fall under the baseline that creates the issues of Marx and Engels : they create a new revolutionary subject,  this time more radical, not removed from any constructive logic in order to achieve the building up of a concise class identity. It cannot be said that this is truly the liberatory form of the Lumpen. We should in turn, consider this defense as the first kind hearted attempt to remove the monopoly of revolt from the hands of the western and white proletariat  in order to atomize  it further into greater depth. Back to the first international and the period of the mere inception of the Lumpen-Prole divide, Bakunin encountered a similar attempt, as the label he was attributed of the “Prince of the Lumpen” was a simple reaction towards what he had conceived as a preferential strategy to out-socialist the marxists. In order to defend the vague and, very un-deleuzian, nomadic peasantry of the remains of economic development in the European labour world, he provocatively took on the position of “Only the Lumpen can liberate and act towards the social revolution”. To repeat myself one last time, this is not but a change in the subject of history and a retention of the notion of the progression of history towards a being-just and not a liberatory becoming. 

The role of the diversification of the relations under the precognition of the Lumpen is one that serves a greater purpose, but once again, the Lumpen is already a liberated subject, only constrained by its own influenced volition. The repetition of the subject form instead of its abolition and liberation on a general form is nothing brand new or outstanding, and hence the proclaimed Lumpen defense of these authors remains incomplete, inconclusive and truthfully useless for a construction of the real genealogy behind the liberation of Lumpen. One group, however, embarked in the tale to liberate and act upon the Lumpen’s condition with greater notions and wider conceptions on how to approach it, this being the Japanese New Left (JNL). In reality, this wide movement of social upheaval in the Japanese islands was much more than just a grouping of pro-Lumpen students. From the Trotskyists and Maoists that confirmed the improvised parties and informal revolutionary groups at the borderlines of the control of the state, many groups seeked an avant-garde approach to acting upon the conditions of the Japanese sphere, and a revolution of Japanese culture as a whole after the fiasco of the expansion and construction of a cultural identity on the precognition of the expansion of the empire. This pre-conceptual imperialist nature to what it meant to be Japanese inherently implied a re-thinking of what groups constituted as the internal operations of the Japanese cultural machine, and those that conformed a noumena, purposely blinded and devoid of any constructive forms on which to base themselves on. The bulbous mass of deformed victims of the violence of the Imperial Japanese construction became the allies of the revolutionary groups : ethnic minorities were, for many groups of denominational variety, the main primary focus on their struggle. Doing so bought them the hatred of some more orthodox Marxist groups, claiming their “non focus on class” as being contrary to the bouillant social climate that might at the time host an actual revolutionary movement. The ethnic minorities that they sought to protect under many circumstances were grouped up vulgarly under the notion of all being Lumpen, below the Japanese worker. And under such framing, groups of students in Tokyo and Osaka claimed this aspect proudly, hailing the defense of the Lumpen into action, seeking to organise outside of the prefecture of Osaka proper the members of the Lumpen, in the case of Japan, the prostitutes, day labourers and marginalized ethnic groups that were comprised as the poster children of this movance popping up in the area. The so-called “inner colony” of the newly constructed Kamagasaki council, constituted of the Lumpenproletarian actors that constitute a majority of the activity in that area, was considered “the 3rd world inside the 1st world”. The notion here implies a heavy dose of colonial relations into the logic of the interaction with the Lumpenproletarian populations. This relation exists because of the following parameter:

Lumpenproletariat = Alienated > Proletariat ----------> sense of outside -------> colonial logic is applied for it, maintaining margin and distance with class society.

That last part remains an integral part of the actions of the JNL on the eyes of the Lumpen : the alienation due to the misery and visceral exploitation of the Lumpen from the whole of Capitalist social actors makes them a subject of the “borderlands” of class society, outside, but remaining on the grasp of the exploitation they phase. Because of this separation, they are unable to construct a destructive imperial entity, just like the Japanese proletariat, willingly or not, did. Of all the groups that appeared during this clearly intellectually fertile time in Japanese class struggle, the East-Asian Anti-Japaneist Armed Front (EAAJAF) remains as the biggest and best example of how to envision the lumpen. Many of the Marxist groups, specially those in accord with Eiji Oguma’s notion that the Anti-Japaneist movement had a clear “post-structuralist character, understanding its use of pseudo-history as realization of the “linguistic turn” ”, none of them actually continued and carried out the proposed total and radical deconstruction of a Japanese cultural identity itself, basing themselves around the “zenkyoto” form, or joint struggle committees that were used as organs that can be classically found on any other Marxist organization. On this, the Daidoji couple that founded the front did so in a non-explicitly “opposition” towards the general direction of the Zengakuren, that by then had abandoned all sense of radical deconstruction and erasure. The group held on to the stance that became the more Lumpen-friendly out of a movement that already greatly considered this sector. Their direct attacks on the Empire, whether it be via the numerous sabotages like in 1974 or simply the intellectual intention behind their collective writings and most specifically the Hara Hara Tokei, had crumbled, as Till Knaudt would say, the entirety of the still not anti-Japaneist enough New Left. Their actions are an expression of the concerns of the victims of this newly appearing virtual-colonialism that is so omnipresent in their conceptions. Basically founding an armed struggle group on the collaboration and retaliation of the Lumpen against even the workerist Prole identity seemed too far for the anachronistic Marxists of modern discourse, and even the ones at the time acting as formal opposition to the EAAJAF, but in reality is the utmost example of an action, an attitude and a thought against the anti-lumpen sentiment, and one favorizing its revolt, self-abolition and proliferation as the vector of the creative destruction they so wanted to see unfold on the Japanese archipelago. The Lumpenproletariat then follows the agitation that it is brought, not prescribed like in the case of the proletariat, and perpetually seeks the total liberation that is the lustful object of Communistic projects : a liberation from all sides of class society, an affirmation of non-exploitation.

Similarly, Deleuze, in his lectures on the State War Machine, retook this term and applied a machinic logic to the developments of capitalism he saw in the later part of his life. The “3rd world inside the 1st world” was then the 4th world, an absurd difference between the affluent perfection of the wealth created and then fetichized by the rich populations, and the misery created, not in response, but in consequence of such development. Total misery contrasted to total virtuosity of capital’s developments. As such, the 4th world is the situation in which Lumpenization occurs, one in which the machine of Capital, that we will from now on describe as “Technocapital”, perpetuates modes of production and exploitation in order to conceive a “virtual-colonial” situation. This neologism is something I have coined to describe that distance in the treatment of the Lumpenproletariat that was considered a form of colonial relationship by the JNL theorists. This relationship relies on distance and separation, all geographical, social and economical distance from class society, to the Lumpen inhabitants of its borderlands. Added to this notion, we have the central word of Panoptilumpenism, a porte-manteau word encompassing “panopticon” and “Lumpen” to define the effect that is to be understood as the self-biopolitical regulation of the Lumpenproletariat that is on itself the reason of their sense of “outsideness” and non-liberation, as a direct result from the total alienation they face and the absolute bottom of the barrel position in society that they held, and still hold, in relation to other groups. Panoptilumpenism, to be more concrete, is the genealogical perpetuating coincidence that pin-points the raison-d’etre of the Lumpenproletariat in its various forms.

By : Santiago "Weebu" Pemo

As a French reader, I am much more impacted and attached to French philosophy and its theorists than most people. I feel a deep connection to the language I grew up with and these theories that so deeply resonate with my being, some ideas and vague concepts I have had since the dawn of my political consciousness, that also appear to be fundamental for these intellectuals, way before my time. There is something truly eye opening about finding deeply avant-garde theory in your language, that has also pretty directly impacted the politics of your own country, to a certain degree. Tiqqun for me is the representation of the search for ideals, the insatiable pursuit of knowledge that I experience, and will experience. Dense and complicated, pretentious and critical, Tiqqun's works have everything to be categorized a million times by fruitless adjectives, but the only one truly fitting for such a titan of theory is "impressive".

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Tiqqun was a French philosophical journal, even if i would categorize it more as a periodic publication and recollection of intellectual texts. It was actively published between 1999 and 2001, supposedly dissolving after the 9/11 attacks for fear of repression and a needed break from the political world, as some claim. Why would they do that? Well, Tiqqun was THE most radical publication France ever got a hold of, but specially because the tradition it subscribed into was not a typical one. Insurectionary Anarchism, Situationism and Communization (In both a general and specific manner, we will go over that later), as well as the large French school of Post-Structuralism and Post-Modernism, Tiqqun is a beacon of modern French radical philosophy. And for how complex what the journal propositions can be, It is no surprise that this lovely piece of theory has gone severely unnoticed for the average "leftist". It's a literary piece at heart, a several hundred pages long poem, it's a work of passion to the world of philosophy and theoretical politics. And that is what makes the publication one of the most beautiful yet disheartening concepts to read, as well as being absolutely groundbreaking, and a read that will challenge anyone's unprepared views about many topics, since it introduces complex notions of the "Invisible Party", "Metaphysical Critique Exercices", "The Theory Of Bloom" and of course, their own spin on "Communization Theory".

"Communization" is a complicated topic, a theory not for the weak minded, something pretty much existent in the own confines of our exhausted and depressed intellectual capacities, but it still manages to be fresh enough to be adaptable to everyone. The lack of dogmatism in the writing, the synthesis of concepts and the post-post modernity of its analysis is unlike anything you can currently get your hands on. But the core concepts are understandable, and can make you rethink your own base ideology from the ground up. At least that is what happened to me. Communization, as the theory that rejects the DOTP from a marxist understanding of revolutionary action and procedures, is not a common piece of thought even in online discourse. Im not here to explain in depth this concept (as it is the case for another article of mine), but what Is important here is how Tiqqun took this theory, very marginal Left Communist piece of theory, and built it, almost single-handedly, from the ground up once again. The revolution that Tiqqun brought by explicitly importing Insurrectionary Anarchist ideas, as well as a general anarchist ethos too, to a concept that wouldn't necessarily hold it, was the stepping stone towards the erasure of "Anarchist"and "Statist" labels in the ultra left, leading to a much more fluid interaction and development of ideas, breaking the dogmas that can follow the Meta-Narratives of certain strains of "left wing" ideology. Meta-Narratives that still hold a lot of theorists back when it comes to the full liberation of their brain, towards a greater understanding of the world, even if that might come with far greater consequences, like absolutely breaking your hope and desire for the world, but not in a very Nihilist way, but a purely emotional sense. Tiqqun is very emotional, and more than anything, it appeals to the individual's understanding of them, and what that said individual wants to take for their own personal benefit. It's what I would call some kind of very well executed decentralized communal thought process.

And this is key In my personal development, as I originally came from a much more orthodox Anarcho-Communist conception of ideology, with its own dogmatism and ingrained fallacies that even back then bothered me, this fluidity and lack of strict structure that the ideas of Tiqqun have allowed me to break down the walls I imposed on myself. And that is what makes their version of Communization so specific. Not only they detail and talk about the general concept that an author like Dauvé could have, but they go further than him. They always do. That is the magic of the journal, going as far as it is possible to think. Their analysis is clean, including some fairly (and sadly) forgotten theories like Situationism at the heart of their vision, specially when they mention anything to do with the "invisible party". Avant-Gardism is the core ethos of what Tiqqun wanted. They did not want to be comprehended by the general population, they didn't write for us to use our texts as proof of the subjective validity of our ideology, but a job. They had a specific vision of the world, a ruthless one, one that did not spare any badmouthing of any concept as long as it fit their worldview, one that is marvelously constructed. A worldview Guy Debord would have been proud to read.

But you simply cannot just read Tiqqun for enjoyment, as that would be too complicated for anyone with less than 50 degrees on philosophy. You read Tiqqun to experience the whole thought of the "Invisible Party", and you do so with an aim : to criticize your ideas. Tiqqun, for the more well read and fundamentally built reader is primarily an exercise for contrasting metaphysics. The variety of the texts, and the diversity of what they are able to deal with in those gives a complexity to their thought I have barely seen anywhere else. Tiqqun is not a manifesto, Tiqqun is a collection of the greatest thoughts of the french ultra-left of the 90's, one very much involved with all the social movements of its time but retaining its "armchair" critique typical of other strains of Left Communism. But why would anyone listen to them? Why care for Tiqqun? Because the modernity of their ideas is something that will put you in a state of "intellectual depression".

No, this is not a Deleuze reference (even if it might as well be). It is simply a statement to the greatness of Tiqqun's writings, ones that challenges you so much, you stay in a state of perplexity that is hard to achieve with most theory collections. Tiqqun made me depressed, because it challenged my traditional views so much, that I could never conceive traditional modern theory the same way. It radically affected my relationship with not only political and philosophical texts, but also with the politics that affect my day to day life : parliamentary politics, for example. I no longer trust what I used to, I no longer want what I wanted, and I no longer seek what I tried to find when i first embarked on the world of politics. Nothing feels enough, I want more. Satisfaction became a secondary need, but reflection and constant upgrading of my own ideas is what I aspired to, like I mentioned at the beginning of this article. Even my actions, at the scale of my fairly boring small town changed, the discourse I have with people interested or not on politics has changed so much, to the point that I feel as my ideas are exclusive to me. Exactly what Tiqqun is all about, but that does not mean it's a concept full of positives, specially living In a world where our action is necessary and important, even if at times fully pointless.

Holding radical positions in pretty much any aspect of thought is exhausting in the stage of deceiving and worse than before social democratic compromise reformist policies of the present day, one that does not even serve the petty bourgeois it sought to protect to begin with. Repeating the same things, same concepts, theories and ideas over and over again to people oblivious to them is the greatest challenge an active militant or passionate anti-capitalist can face. But the breath of fresh air Tiqqun's expression and interpretation of the classics, as well as an introduction to the newer theories that SHOULD take a larger part in our new theoretical and practical developments is very much needed in the modern day landscape. It's the best of both worlds, In a style you can hardly dislike. Why? Because of the variety of it.

As I mentioned at the beginning, Tiqqun is a collection of texts, but it didn't exactly end in 2001. The publication of several and very complex, pretty much full scale books around 2004-2010 revitalized the scene, specially taking into account how un-finished their work can seem to some. It is not a fully developed program, a truly new political ideology or thought model, but simply good theory, and these newer additions completed an already rich project. But what was important about Tiqqun's post-mortem publications is not anything published under their name, but more so an associate group that can very much be the same people that conformed the original secret council of the Tiqqun redaction, that being "The Invisible Committee". As many of you know, this neo-Tiqqunist collective made one of the most important works out of the modern french scene, named "The Insurrection To Come", a book so popular, it was the object of all the far right moral panics on an international scale, doing ravages to the brain of Fox News redactors. But what really mattered there was how it affected my perspective, as it was one of the first texts of the sort that i ever had the opportunity to read, and is considered a cornerstone of the insurrectionary movement as a whole, revered globally and by a large variety of individuals, on and outside of internet discourse. Yes, it is not Tiqqun, but its closeness with the original intellectual group makes it a product of the original thought of the Invisible Party.

Game changing, In every aspect, even on terms of rights and politics, on domains of repression of radical thought, even. In November 2008, Julien Copat, one of the known members of Tiqqun's redaction was arrested by french authorities under pretext of "Participating on a terrorist action that derailed a train" In a small locality in the rural center of the nation (Tarnac, hence giving its name to the "Tarnac Affair"). And this case, that lasted until around 4-5 years ago, caught enough traction for my young and impressionable brain to know about it, years later when the case resumed after a long break. And this was the first case I ever saw where radical thought leaders were attacked falsely based purely on the radicality of their writings, something pretty much without precedent at that time. And it was the reason why I even know about the publication to begin with, and so was the case for a large amount of young teenagers, who got a newly ignited passion towards these ideas, brewing ever since the intellectual rebellion of May 68, bringing more air to the scene than any other project before. It has been one of the few judicial cases I went deep in, and that exposed more clearly than any other case in modern times, how the punishment great thinkers receive under the rule of the bourgeoisie. It was an event that radicalized me indirectly.

The reason why I consider Tiqqun to be so heavy on my brain is because of how real it is. Never had I seen a fusion of extremely theoretical and technical philosophical theory mixed with a focus on praxis without precedents, specially in a time where political actions from the proletariat are ramping up in power, intensity and frequency once again, like a clock. Tiqqun represents the non-nihilistic view of revolutionary action, with the sadness that comes with knowing the truths behind the movements and the ideas that power them. That is what brings sadness to my soul. It was a necessary step in my development, and I feel as if it's just a reflection of what the general population can feel about the exploding liberal status quo, but the people on our side of theory know the reasons why. Tiqqun gave me the keys to understand better the world but also the revolutionary thought that i wholeheartedly stick to, and at the same time, Tiqqun amplified my Capitalist Realism to levels I had barely ever seen before. Tiqqun, In all its greatness, doomed me to intellectual depression, and I will not recover this time.

By : Santiago "Weebu" Pemo

December 1st, 2018 marks the day one can pinpoint the exact moment the mass "anti-establishment" left wing in Latin America effectively died. By the election of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the world saw in it the opportunity for the indigenous population alongside the large working class to re-ignite an era of progress in the country, in hand with the immense discontent the majority of the population had with the country's personalities and institutions. A groundbreaking moment? Not in the end. AMLO's election happened out of pure anger and desperation from the people, a population so neglected by its technocratic ruling class and actively threatened and oppressed by the global capital holders up north the Rio Bravo, that they chose him simply because he was the big face of it all. An opportunist of monumental capacities. With the Movement For National Regeneration, known as MORENA in Spanish (and totally not a fascist sounding name), the "left wing" in Mexico knew its first victory ever since revolutionary times, and it was worse than expected.

His tendency is nothing more than what can be qualified as your typical reactionary, in all aspects. In typical Mexican fashion, AMLO not only did not comply with his agenda and propositions, but held an immense campaign to support his in-action in pretty much anything. His radical anti-liberalism had the good line, and was followed by a correct stance against the state of the country post-NAFTA. 3 elections of training his discourse and it stuck into the Mexican popular consciousness. For how populist and demagogical his speech was, he held the right ideas : the direct attack of the Mexican bourgeoisie in all aspects of society and claiming an alleged "anti-american" posture is the correct stance to have, but it didn't even end up being that his official posture.

AMLO, for how delusional the right wing in Mexico claims him to be a "Communist Monster coming after your kid's education" and other usual moronic moral panics, he is nothing more but your average PRI technocrat, getting a name inside the party around the 70's, a time when the big tent adjective that they claim was, at the very least, somewhat true. He sided with the "social" fraction of the party, that had as much social comprehension as Mussolini, until the eventual creation of the PRD, a party so corrupt that it overshadowed the PRI at its own game. An impressive track record for someone claiming to be the "new face of Mexico", a bold title considering his social positions and his complete inaction in any matters other than "goblins" and "COVID curing image patches". A ridiculous man he is, and has the smartest strategy out of any president in functions today. He used all the needs of the Mexican people mixed with populist religious conservative talking points, and you got yourself a winner. No social progress beyond basic social democratic positions, no ecological consciousness and no radicality whatsoever : the perfect way to take advantage of politically alienated and disadvantaged Mexican rural voters.

For the longest time, the middle class was the focus of Mexican politics, whether it was with Christian conservative cultural talking points of the financial gain of the newly and growing petty-bourgeois owners of new lands on the cities with aid of international capital, the electoral system turned around people with this profile. No amount of class representatives ever truly got the chamber of deputies or senate, and that has not changed. But what changed was the focus of these elections. The middle class, the one proposed with globalisation, turned out to be unsustainable. The filthy game that capitalism led all around the country pushed for furthering inequalities and the crumbling of the cultural identity of a middle class. The shift appealed to the populists, the one preying on the people not only falling into these precarious situations, but the ones already familiar with the bottom of the barrel of Mexican hierarchical society.

Because after the total and absolute ruckus that completely covered the Neoliberal era of Mexico, starting around the 80's with the global dominance of the Reagan-Thatcher administrations, no one would ever endorse the hell those reforms entailed. Coinciding with the presidency of La Madrid, an ironically named neo-liberal reformer who, just like his peers, was educated in the highest and most elitist schools of the American administrative system. All with a glamourous bourgeois view of the new train of thought that modern ultra-liberalism, one with a total and contrary ethos to the almost-established revolutionary Mexican ideal. All of these people ended up being the architects of their absolute electoral defeat years down the line. Going on until now, the Neo-Liberalism that Mexico faced put the country's proletariat at the mercy of international finance groups, in total cooperation with the government, at the height of its corruption and establishing technocratic rule. The 80's and 90's were not too kind for the average Mexican, but it's really not like they ever were. Debt crisis, mass privatization and disregard for workers well being destroyed completely the mass proletariat of the country. President Portillo continued this stance, and that lasted well into the change of parties with Fox and Calderon, the two large scapegoats for the current government. And yes, for how guilty these last administrations were of completely and violently liberalizing the country, this continuous process never ended, even under the administration of the man who stands against all of these people. And what did all of this cost? The radicality of any movement seeking to liberate Mexico from the grip of Canadian water companies hoarding the resources of an arguably dying country.

This period, regarded as either the "Shining period" for conservative white people, or just hell for anyone else involved in the process of these reforms, has had THE central role of the rejection of these ideas for the average Mexican. In this part of the world, the left does generally win the poor's vote, but it never finishes in a victory for them due to the extreme ammount of issolation that these people face, and the disregard the political elites have for the poorest and least advantaged Mexicans. Never has a trully revolutionary (Marxist or other) party had relevance in Mexico ever since the dirty wars, a series of guerilla conflicts from revolutionary (and quite opportunistic) groups on the countryside and the surounding areas of dense yet rural areas of the mountains of Guerrero. And ever since then, the leading (mostly finantial) bougeoisie has put down any opposition to the neo-liberal reforms as a form of rehabilitation of these revolts that had never the less class struggle at its core. And well, since the trully anti-establishement left wing had either been killed back in 68 or demoralized by the 2000's, its exactly at this point that the hopes of some poorly optimistic reformists was poured into the PRD candidacy of the old man apparently 60% of Mexico adores, AMLO. A candidacy that went on for 18 years, and that found its way to Palacio Nacional, but not without hiccups. Allegations of stolen elections and a sentiment of unfairness regarding the elections, especially high around the 2012 election of president Calderon (A.K.A, the Devil). Largely using his arguably smooth talk, he managed to turn this unfairness, coupled with a disastrous last president, that being Peña Nieto (basically a puppet for the dying PRI party to stay relevant after being de-throwned but the PAN as the leading right wing party), you got yourself a once in a lifetime election result, and that was enough to sadly appease the proletariat. The opportunistic nature of his politics, using other parties and coalitions in his benefit, was an absolute loss for the working class, and that effect of appeasement will be felt for longer than many can imagine.

So opportunistic that the bolshevik vanguard feels rightful in that place, this man never held any kind of real political positions besides opposing this controversial neo-liberal era the country went through while he gathered bourgeois power inside the party that dictated the country's direction for 60+ years. No radical background or desire to reform or even change the system, just a mindless return to the status quo that went before his ripe time : state run corporatism. There is, in no sense, a social character to AMLO's presidency. His state-powered economic policy is the exact same economic ideas that directed the early bourgeoisie in Mexico's post-1910 history. Consisting of mere and mindless nationalisation at the benefit of his own group of prescribed industrialists and populistic welfare ideas that re-enforce women's submisive role, such as the pink-credit given to families. The kind of class colaboration he so proposes, in addition to the policies implemented to comply with the social truce he needs to govern off of the people who have everything to win in case of a radical change for the future of the Mexican nation. For how much he claims the legacy of Cardenas, In no way does he even come close to that role, and I doubt he even wanted to fill it. The same way trade unions in Mexico have been the largest and most disastrous proletarian organization mode, AMLO comes in a non-glorious second place.

He, effectievely, managed to institutionalize the anti-establishement feeling that got rallied around him, and that sentiment became the only justification of his defenders for his political legitimacy. No matter how reactionary his social policy is, people will like him, because they see in him the change this overly capitalist nation needs. His idea of an ideal nation is nothing short of a nationalist's one. And, besides the obvious reasons why that concept in a multinational state like Mexico is, his foreign policy is not much better. He sought to break with "yankee imperialism" yet complied with all of Trump's suggestions. He sought to oppose "bourgeois" capital buildings, yet commanded the construction of newer ones with his selected clique of bureaucrats at his service. He claimed to fight the narco-state in a way the neo-liberals failed, yet has connexions to those groups for monetary profit. For how much anyone can claim this man to be the start of the change towards a fairer system, the deeply putrid Mexican system will never, ever, be close to reform.

This feeling is not exclusive to Mexico, but something we can see in any county that has a populist "anti-establishment" movement. Chile knew a massive electoral upset, with a young and apparently radical president, the Left wing returned in pure Allende fashion, and just like him, the dream of Democratic Socialism In the "wea" country was exterminated the moment the bourgeois constitution was sought to be changed for a fairly less bourgeois yet proletariat "friendly" one. Certainly, this change was not going to bring Communism to Chile, but it aimed at attacking a core tenant of Pinochet's Neo-Liberal regime, and it flopped the moment it saw the opportunity to disrupt it ever so slightly. For how flawed the actual text was, the result it got was unwarranted. But why did this happen? Because the moment you attack bourgeois society, it is going to go against you with full force, purely out of cultural dominance. And for another reason : an anti-establishment movement that wants to become the ruling object of bourgeois society, (even of compared to Mexico, the Chilean left wing had much sincere and real intentions of reformism) it will serve but one purpose, that being the ruling class. Or what about France, a country with the most unapologetic Neoliberal leader on earth that knew a Left-Wing victory in the last legislative elections. A broad coalition of reformists and some reactionary reformists (the French Communist Party) that with this power sought to disrupt the perpetual destruction of Macron's regime. The result? The immense rise in power of reactionaries and fascists seeking to become a legitimate party for the bourgeois state and well, Macron is still in quite the comfortable position. Even after months of pretty radical proletariat action (one that I personally participated in), the ones who sold the movement was the institutional Left Wing, purely out of rejecting outright Insurrection out of fear of backlash, such is the nature of the bourgeois parliament.

Not only is any movement incapable of reforming capitalism by any means possible, but specially, a radical-ish minded movement fails at the thought of establishing itself as a correct, bourgeois party. MORENA is not the vanguard of the revolution, and for how much they claim that to be correct in their hypocritical crusade against neo-liberalism, it is completely opposite to it : it has now become the party representing the oppression of the proletariat and the indigenous populations. In no world will Mexico destroy the liberalism it so much fought for most of it's history by electing a reactionary bureaucrat, and nowdays, the only defense this crumbling state has is the military. Yes, really. AMLO is far from being the equivalent of Sun Yat Sen, but his autocratic beliefs are not shy from reality. Yes, the bourgeois myth of "benevolent left wing rule" is a total destroyer of revolutionary fervor, but in this case, the rule of AMLO is not only legitimized by his absurd popular support, but also his grip on the country's right hand : the new and reformed national guard.

You see, ever since 2019 the police was officially militarized. Something quite unprecedented for a country presenting fundamental issues with both police and military institutions. The argument? Beat the narcos that most likely fueled his campaign, but the repression aspect of them was never shy. With direct control by both the "Civil defense secretary" and the head of the actual military institution of the federation, this newfound army has repressed movements down in Guerrero, as well as the Zapatistas (even if I do not endorse that group directly) and other free movements of the area of Chiapas and Oaxaca. And even after the disastrous administration of the metro failures, most likely due to bureaucratic corruption and the will to neglect the public services of the capital city, the national guard was deployed to "ensure the safety" of the passangers, yet it stayed well until this day to act as a reinforced watchdog for the bourgeoisie in power of the City-State.

Impossible it is to deny his behaviour has been nothing but repressive and contrary to the benefit of the overly beaten up Mexican working class. Is this a failure for the MORENA movement? Not at all. In nature, besides the obvious realization that reforming bourgeois society without disrupting the foundations of it via total and absolute insurection and revolutionary war, the MORENA movement, as well as the whole "Pink Wave" in Latin America lacked the analytical side of it : the petty bourgeois aspect of these movements come from the populistic and opportunistic elites that pretend being disruptive of liberalism at all, without an actual through analysis. Is it purely because the leading heads of these movements lack that understanding? Well no, it is purely normal. They never sought to disrupt capitalism, they are not anti-capitalist and populist movements never trully will. Using popular support and radical talking points to gather power inside the current system is in no way disruptive of the bourgeoisie : they are the bourgeoisie. Nothing has changed since the 70's, and everything got worse since the 80's. The only chance for anything is to reject all notions of "radical electoralism" and embrace the revolt. This was never a failure : these practices have only kept the system going, and the only good call for it is its destruction, an absolute one at that. Wether it is the Mexican, Chilean or French proletariat, the stage that capitalism is on right now calls for revolt, and you should join it. For the end of bourgeois tyrants, no matter of how red they try to appear. Fighting capitalism is not a matter of morals or elections, it's about liberation of all those whose oppression allows parasites like this to keep on running off of false hopes and shed tears. My home country has a lot of issues, and the technocratic bourgeoisie is the key one. Absolute fight, absolute revolt and absolute liberation, now and tomorrow.

MORENA, and all the opportunist reactionaries will be the death of Capitalism, but from the blood on our blades and effort the proletariat will put towards ridding itself from it. The proletariat does not need guidance from old corporatist men, it needs itself.

Property is super-flux to its material presence, it is ingrained in the minds and spirits of the people that own it, and the people who are subjects of such ownership. It’s omnipresent, from the way we see love to simply the most bare-bones interaction on human history : a handshake. We salute for the simplest reason of getting one back, we need a transaction, we need to own that from the other person : we crave the need to get a return on investment over our simple expression of human decency. No amount of politeness can change this ingrained mentality. No amount of work and theory will detach you from your concept of property. So sadly i hardly see a future where our own generation, the one living under the biggest scale of private property in its history, will ever get away from such brainwashing. It is up for the future, the children of our future revolution to be born into a world where such where such social relations do not exist, a clean slate, for anyone to prosper under. We might bring the end of our misery in our generation, but the true communization, the true evolution of our sweat and tears spread on the fields and towns that once comprised our battlefield, will only happen once we clean ourselves from this train of thought.

Only by total, absolute change can we bring about what we want, what we need and what we desire, only then will property stop being a discussion, as it would have acquired a more appropriate meaning for a truly prosperous world. While rambling, I find myself, I find myself lost in the thoughts of such great futuristic possibilities, and I crave it more than ever. Our present can be changed, but the future, when we will no longer be here to fight for our people’s liberation, will be the true heir to freedom. And once that sense has been won, once our successors find greater and larger peace in what we built, the revolutionary call, the struggle, the movement will keep up, and will bear down upon them, just like us. Once again, the future will bring about the state of freedom : nothing more than the constant struggle towards it, nothing more than the ruthless critique and abolition of everything we have, and ever will create. The only thing that is absolute on this rigidly subjective and abstract world of mentality is revolt. We revolt because we are alive, and the moment that need is taken from us, we would have ascended from simple and mere human beings. If i were to live the life of a young person in our post revolutionary world, I would uncritically chose the side of the revolt, the side of discontent and the side of the left, left of whatever system, dogmas and issues the human species might face.