Logistik och övergÄng (2)
NÀr jag kommenterade Endnotes revolutionsteori förra Äret kritiserade jag vad jag dÄ uppfattade som en brist pÄ strategi. Det var inte riktigt rÀttvist dÄ Jasper Bernes bidrag i samma nummer utvecklar detta mycket bra. Bernes svarar ocksÄ delvis Toscanos kritik och bidrar med det till en viktig diskussion om övergÄng.
Vi behöver teori, skriver Bernes, för att frÄga oss sjÀlva var vi Àr, var vi Àr pÄ vÀg, och för att reflektera över i relation/respons till vilken (praktisk) erfarenhet som teorin har vÀxt fram. Teori handlar med andra ord om att konstruera kartor. Att knyta ihop rum, flöden, spÄr, dra deras linjer och synliggöra mönster. Teori i den hÀr meningen Àr intimt kopplat till strategi.
Bernes utgÄngspunkt Àr blockaden av hamnen, höjdpunkten för OccupyvÄgen. Varför det blockerades, och hur, av vilka, osv. Centralt blir logistiken.
"But logistics is more than the extension of the world market in space and the acceleration of commodital flows: it is the active power to coordinate and choreograph, the power to conjoin and split flows; to speed up and slow down; to change the type of commodity produced and its origin and destination point; and, finally, to collect and distribute knowledge about the production, movement and sale of commodities as they stream across the grid." (180)
Parallellen mellan logistik och cybernetik Àr uppenbar. Flöden av varor behöver flöden av information. Systemet behöver insyn, översikt och representation. HÀr kan en kontralogistik intervenera som en krigskonst: slÄ till dÀr det kÀnns och bli lika flexibel.
"Possession of such a counterlogistical system, which might be as crude as a written inventory, would allow antagonists to focus their attention where it would be most effective. Taking, for example, the situation of the French pension law struggles of 2010, in which mobile blockades in groups of twenty to a hundred moved throughout French cities, supporting the picket lines of striking workers but also blockading key sites independently, the powers of coordination and concentration permitted by such a system are immediately apparent." (187)
Blockaden har ocksÄ vad Bernes kallar ett existentiellt vÀrde. I avbrotten kan den vÀgran och makt som de facto utövas smitta och ge synergieffekter. IstÀllet för att bara se det som nÄgot negativt, som Toscano gör, har taktiken en potential att synliggöra bÄde "systemets" funktioner och samtidigt proletÀrers förmÄga att faktiskt göra motstÄnd. Synligheten (visibility) gör det möjligt för fler att se och förstÄ sammanhang och effekter/konsekvenser. MÀnniskor börjar se sig sjÀlva som aktörer. (Det finns hÀr, tror jag, ocksÄ möjligheter till genuint allmÀnt intellekt.)
Mot Toscano invÀnder Bernes ocksÄ att det inte alls nödvÀndigtvis finns progressiva potentialer i all teknologi som kan Ätertas. NÀr det gÀller logistik handlar det om mer Àn bara effektivisering. I sjÀlva verket ökar logistiken inte produktivitet, bara cirkulationens rÀckvidd och hastighet. Löneskillnader baserade pÄ en global arbetsdelning Àr inbyggt i systemet. Logistiken Àr som sÄdant Àmnat och utformat för cirkulering av varor, inte bruksvÀrden.
"We might also question the reconfiguration thesis from the perspective of scale. Because of the uneven distribution of productive means and capitals â not to mention the tendency for geographical specialisation, the concentration of certain lines in certain areas (textiles in Bangladesh, for instance)â the system is not scalable in any way but up. It does not permit partitioning by continent, hemisphere, zone or nation. It must be managed as a totality or not at all. Therefore, nearly all proponents of the reconfiguration thesis assume high-volume and hyper-global distribution in their socialist or communist system, even if the usefulness of such distributions beyond production for profit remain unclear. Another problem, though, is that administration at such a scale introduces a sublime dimension to the concept of âplanningâ; these scales and magnitudes are radically beyond human cognitive capacities. The level of an impersonal âadministration of thingsâ and the level of a âfree association of producersâ are not so much in contradiction as separated by a vast abyss. Toscano leaves such an abyss marked by an ominous appeal to Herbert Marcuseâs concept of ânecessary alienationâ as the unfortunate but necessary concomitant of maintenance of the technical system. Other partisans of the reconfiguration thesis, when questioned about the scaling-up of the emancipatory desires and needs of proletarian antagonists to a global administration invariably deploy the literal deus ex machina of supercomputers. Computers and algorithms, we are told, will determine how commodities are to be distributed; computers will scale up from the demands for freedom and equality of proletarian antagonists and figure out a way to distribute work and the products of work in a manner satisfactory to all. But how an algorithmically-mediated production would work, why it would differ from production mediated by competition and the price-mechanism remains radically unclear, and certainly unmuddied by any actual argument. Would labour-time still be the determinant of access to social wealth? Would free participation (in work) and free access (in necessaries) be facilitated in such a system? If the goal is rather a simple equality of producers â equal pay for equal work â how would one deal with the imbalances of productivity, morale and initiative, which result from the maintenance of the requirement that âhe who does not work does not eatâ? Is this what ânecessary alienationâ means?" (195-196)
Att ta över logistiken krÀver alltsÄ omedelbart globalt övertagande, inte helt olikt Theorie communistes idé om kommuniseringens löpeld. Om mÄlet inte Àr nÄgot annat Àn att administrera logistiken annorlunda kommer vi alltsÄ behöva handla, istÀllet för att bli mer sjÀlvförsörjande, eller med andra ord: pÄtvinga arbete. Förr kanske det hade funkat, men knappast efter avindustrialiseringen och globaliseringen. (Och dÄ har vi inte ens nÀmnt finans...)
"We might work to disseminate the idea that the seizure of the globally-distributed factory is no longer a meaningful horizon, and we might essay to map out the new relations of production in a way that takes account of this fact. For instance, we might try to graph the flows and linkages around us in ways that comprehend their brittleness as well as the most effective ways they might be blocked as part of the conduct of particular struggles. These would be semi-local maps â maps that operate from the perspective of a certain zone or area. From this kind of knowledge, one might also develop a functional understanding of the infrastructure of capital, such that one then knew which technologies and productive means would be orphaned by a partial or total delinking from planetary flows, which ones might alternately be conserved or converted, and what the major practical and technical questions facing a revolutionary situation might look like. How to ensure that there is water and that the sewers function? How to avoid meltdown of nuclear reactors? What does local food production look like? What types of manufacture happen nearby, and what kinds of things can be done with its production machinery? This would be a process of inventory, taking stock of things we encounter in our immediate environs, that does not imagine mastery from the standpoint of the global totality, but rather a process of bricolage from the standpoint of partisan fractions who know they will have to fight from particular, embattled locations, and win their battles successively rather than all at once. None of this means setting up a blueprint for the conduct of struggles, a transitional program. Rather, it means producing the knowledge which the experience of past struggles has already demanded and which future struggles will likely find helpful." (200-201)