[P2P-F] Fwd: FAIR Weekly Roundup: mobilizing for anti-racism

[Michel Bauwens]

one of the best newsletters to keep up with the anti-racist (which now must
include, anti-woke, struggles)

-- Forwarded message -
From: FAIR Substack 
Date: Sun, Jan 2, 2022 at 10:59 PM
Subject: FAIR Weekly Roundup
To: 


Last week Benjamin Morley wrote a piece for our Substack about his personal
run-ins with race essentialist diversity, Equity, and inclusion trainings
while working for the Vermont’s Department of Aging and Independent Living.
Morley describes the training he and others experienced in great
detail: ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌
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‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

FAIR Weekly Roundup
January
2nd, 2022


FAIR

Jan 2

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[P2P-F] against the massive indoctrination of US workers

[Michel Bauwens]

I don't intend to use this mailing list to harp on this divisive topic, but
I also am reacting to the denialist article send by DM, which flies in the
face of an overwhelming amount of documentation ...

so for 2-3 days, I may send some items, so that nobody can claim, "Ich
have this nich gewusst".

Michel

Benjamin Morley wrote a piece for our *Fair for all* Substack about his
personal run-ins with race essentialist diversity, equity, and inclusion
trainings while working for Vermont’s Department of Aging and Independent
Living. Morley describes the training he and others experienced in detail:

The trainers attempted to impose their ideology on us by changing our
perceptions and values related to areas such as equity, privilege, racism,
identity, family, politics, and spiritual beliefs. They also sought to
alter our self-perception based on which identity groups we were members
of, and how this group membership affected our status in American society.
The facilitator tried to normalize this new philosophy by encouraging us to
completely re-evaluate our individual identities, part of what she referred
to as “doing the work.”

Morley and others were accused of racism, and he remembers witnessing the
“fear, sadness, and guilt” the training instilled in his coworkers.
However, this was interpreted by the trainers as merely a symptom of “doing
the work” that’s necessary to combat “whiteness” and systemic racism.

When Morely decided to voice his misgivings about the training, he
discovered that he was indeed not alone—many of his coworkers felt the same
way, but were simply too afraid to to speak up. Morely believes this
dynamic is common, and hopes his story encourages more people to start
speaking up.


https://fairforall.substack.com/p/i-spoke-out-against-discriminatory

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[P2P-F] Fwd: Crypto Criticism, Part Two

[Michel Bauwens]

-- Forwarded message -
From: Daniel Pinchbeck from Daniel Pinchbeck’s Newsletter <
danielpinchb...@substack.com>
Date: Mon, Jan 3, 2022 at 12:31 AM
Subject: Crypto Criticism, Part Two
To: 


Confronting the Left's negative critique of
cryptocurrency ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌
‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌
‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌
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‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌
Crypto Criticism, Part Two
Confronting
the Left's negative critique of cryptocurrency


Daniel Pinchbeck

Jan 2

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Sterling
Crispin, *Property*, 2021

Critical Paths

In the last part of this essay, I 

[P2P-F] a strategic analysis of where we are, and the role of the 'everywhere's

[Michel Bauwens]

WHERE ARE WE GOING ? A POLITICAL-STRATEGIC ANALYSIS

Here is how I see our conundrum

   - While capitalism and neoliberalism have been contradictory phenomenon
   in human history, creating both a lot of wealth, as well as substantial
   misery, the very least we can say is that it does not seem to be
   sustainable in the longer term: it is an agent of destruction of vital
   planetary resources, and is creating in its current phase, acute social
   inequalities; it seems in a process of de-legimization and disintegration,
   and the seeds are being sown for much more authoritarian and totalitarian
   systems

At the same time, it is doubtful if this can succeed, and ‘distributed
disintegration’ seems a realistic counter-scenario. This might lead both to
local deterioration but also to local re-organizations that may be more
sustainable and socially just.

As global and national identities are weakened by the inability of both the
global and national systems to satisfy human needs and dreams, two
counter-reactions are occurring.

On the side of the ‘somewheres’, broadly the working classes that are
rooted to place and community, the search is for more closer-knit potential
solidarities; this leads to a revival of localist, communautarian,
regionalist, but also nation-state ideologies, along with ethnic and
religious revivals, the binding element is a search for cultural roots that
can create common identity;

* for the ‘nowheres’, broadly the intellectual and managerial classes, the
regression is to the ‘woke’ identities, mostly linked to biological
conditions such as skin colour, gender, sexual preferences, etc .. The
first reaction leads to new coalitions of the rooted, with the more local
‘powers that be’,i.e. the territorially rooted entrepreneurs, SME's etc
...; the latter ‘unity of victimhood’ is powerfully backed by the
culturally progressive neoliberal elites, i.e. woke inc., the woke state
formations, etc .. Both reactions lead to increased othering, are based on
scapegoating mechanisms that may lead to social violence. (the inner group
being consolidated by a 'common enemy', rather than choosing for common
humanity approaches). We have historical examples on this on both sides of
the political spectrum.

Indeed the first form of reaction may lead to increased xenophobia and to
local and national forms of competition, with substantial dangers for
increased warfare for scarce resources; the second leads to the
consolidation of a new knowledge elite, led by a intellectual cartel, and
means an all-out warfare against the poor and the working class. Equal
outcome ideologies have historically led to disasters (right from the
Mazdaceans in Ancient Persia up to the Cultural Revolution under Mao)

So it must be said that the return to the nation-state, and ‘sovereignism’,
in the current context, is much more inclusive and pro-diversity in nature,
it aims to revive collective stories that bind, but at the cost of an
increased effort towards ‘assimilation’ towards national identities; it
means a slowing down of migration (the classic position of  Marxism, the
left and the labor movement until the 70s), but it is also attached to the
rule of law, equality under the law, and reinforced forms of national
solidarity, along with forms of protectionism; the second option aims for a
new racial and group identity based society, based on racial and other
hierarchies, based on permanent active discrimination, in other words, a
segregated society modelled on the realities that were prevalent before
modernity and before the advent of ‘universalist egalitarianism’. I
sincerely hope that a more progressive version of this may develop, but I
am not putting my hopes on it.

My bet is therefore that the sociology of the first coalition is better
poised for victories in the current context, and that the second, despite
its alliance with neoliberal forces, cannot command local and national
majorities. As stated, both reactions will increase othering, the first
against perceived ‘foreign elements that refuse to assimilate’, the second
a particular racial group but that will likely lead to a permanent purity
spiral and social implosions. But it is important to realize that the
nation-state, and its idea of legal equality between all citizens, which
can receive a progressive translation through building infrastructures of
opportunity for all, is in all circumstances preferable to a society based
on biological profiling and hierarchization, group allocation and
unequality before the law.

[This may sound counter-intuitive, but if we posit 3 factions:

* the conservative position of equality before the law, but which tends to
ignore the objective physical realities needed to realize these rights
concretely

* the traditional progressive position of concretizing these rights through
infrastructures of access and personal development for the majority working
populations

* the neo-identitarian position of equality of outcome 

[P2P-F] analyzing wokism

[Michel Bauwens]

Below is a class analysis of the current form of identity politics based on
neo-racism and neo-segregationism, i.e. the ideology that claims that
people should be treated and interpreted on the basis of their group
characteristics, and on their differences instead of their commonalities.

Peer to peer dynamics and commoning require that people are recognized as
equipotential persons, since the basis is the free association of people to
common projects. An ideology that claims that people are representatives of
their group and must behave according to group norms, and interpreted on
that basis, is not compatible with commoning as a set of ideas or practice.

I spent some time analyzing the Evergreen State College events, and what
the behavior of the actors expresses in terms of political principles,
which you can find here, at https://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/Woke_Ideology.
These practices based on racial and other forms of scapegoating and
hierarchisation are probably the closest one can find to the racist and
anti-semitic movements of the 1930s. They 'cancel' people they disagree
with, aiming for the reputational and economic destruction,  use violence
and intimidation, are pro-censorship. They are an entirely illiberal
tendency, and a clear and present danger to any social advance.

It is important to know that there is a solid progressive,
black-liberation, socialist and Marxist critique of this middle class
ideology of the professional and managerial classes, which you can find in
this depository, https://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/Category:Identity_Politics

For those wanting to learn more about the genesis of this neo-racist and
segregationist movement, I recommend the following three books, none of
them are perfect, but they are quite good:

1) Cynical Theories gives the ideological evolution from the postmodernism
of the 70s, in 3 stages, i.e. from deconstructive to agentic or applied
postmodernism, and from applied to reified postmodernis, which consciously
decided to essentialize biological characteristics and create race and
gender hierarchies based on them. Stage 1 and 2 are entirely compatible
with progressive thinking in its pluralist variety, but stage 3 thinkers
overturn the principles of egalitarianism and universalism, and chose to
fight for zero-sum games in favour of PMC elites. The book extensive quotes
the actors and thinkers in the movement, in their own words

2) The Coddling of the American Mind, gives the sociological background
which is essential the story of the culture of fear which started already
in the 80s, but became hegemonic pretty much exactly in 2013-15, when GenZ
entered the universities, the first generation  to be socialized not on the
internet but on mobile social media, and demanded the culture of fragility
which is now the norm. It also explains the psychological mechanisms that
are at work, and are the opposite of the ones creating resilience.

3) As of 2017, this generation entered the workforce, with one third being
strongly supportive of authoritarian censorship. This is the story told by
the Madness of Crowd.

You may also want to check out the book of Erec Smith, outlining the
disempowering effects of the new ideology on minority students, and the
books of father Toure and son, as representatives of  the class-based black
liberation traditions.

The majority of students and professors in anglo-saxon countries now
declare that they are no longer free to speak their mind, and thousands of
progressives have been eliminated from academia. This is why the marxist
Jacobin and its theoretical magazine Catalyst, and their Youtube channel,
are one of the best sources for continued progressive resistance against
the Successor Ideology. The book Woke Inc is an insider account of the
switch of the ruling class elites to the new ideology, as a conscious
response to the 99% challenge of the Occupy movement. Cornell West,
Chomsky, Chris Hedges, Matt Taibi and Glenn Greenwald are just some of the
voices who have spoken out against identity politics and cancel culture and
noted the political inversion, i.e. of people claiming to be progressive
but favouring all the themes that used to be right-wing.

Denialism is not a strategy: all the surveys, electoral  and sociological
research point to a consistent picture: identitarian ideology leads to a
systematic weakening of the left and guarantees electoral defeats. Vivek
Chibber, who agrees with Wallerstein that this will delay social change for
at least a generation, explains very well the political dynamics and how it
creates a blackmail situation towards the social left: whenever a
left-populist champion appears, as Sanders in the US or Corbyn in the UK,
the thematic is used to discredit them. This is how Sanders, who had won
the first one third of the primaries in 2019, was eliminated in Georgia,
after the mobilization of the woke theme that he was a white supremacist.

The good news, if there is any, is that p2p and commons