Italian communist and political activist Antonio Gramsci’s core concepts like hegemony, organic crisis, passive revolution, historic bloc, transformismo, war of position and war of manoeuvre are central for our understanding of today’s complex global capitalist system, as well as the catastrophic changes that are currently taking place in it.
Recently, Stephen Gill, a prominent neo-Gramscian global political economist, has been identifying the 2008 global financial turmoil as the manifestation of a ‘global organic crisis‘, with reference to Gramsci’s original concept. Theorisation of the rise and decline of the global hegemony of the transnational capitalist class and the Empire have also been inspired by Gramsci’s writings and enlightening about what was going on, at least to me.
Jerome E. Roos from online magazine Reflection on a Revolution (ROARMAG), in a brilliant article this time has sharply indicated the upcoming passive revolution on a global scale, by tracing the recent shift in the language of intellectuals of global capitalist elite/class such as Warren Buffet, Forbes and Financial Times authors. This shocking return of the concept of Class Warfare on the pens and mouths of the core capitalist actors, after decades carefully hiding it under the carpet, might be indeed signaling an upcoming intervention by capitalists together with state elite in order to prevent an entire collapse of the system, while saving its capitalist character.
A global organic crisis roughly means that there are analytically three alternatives before us: a global war, a global fascism, or a global revolution. What brought us here is told clearly in the above referred articles also in terms of the first and second options we have. But where can we, actually we have to go from here, this is about the third option, might be secret in the below time table.
As P2P Foundation has also been closely following and reporting on it, P2P Global Revolutions has already been taking a momentum globally, since the historical event of Tahrir Square.
The time table can also be read as the crystallisation of a P2P revolutionary work which can also be linked back to feminist uprising, environmentalist awakening, Zapatistas, the Battle of Seattle, Social Forums, the anti-war movement and others. Yet the process of global rising up has been accelerated by besides the Icelandic and Tunisian events, the Egyptian, Spaniard, Greek and UK city square occupations. The 2011 International Road to Dignity reflects this momentum of taking over the city centres. So we are moving from war of position to the war of manoeuvre.
The peer to peer processes are at the core of this rising revolutionary agency, as well as to the structural changes we have been experiencing since the late 60s. These two dialectically shapes each other within the process. Against this backdrop the precariat, peer labour and immaterial labour [including social justice activists working for the NGO sector] are forming a constellation of alter forces, towards a grand alliance without the consciousness of a class. The formation of this new global historic bloc of alter forces can be indicating the rise of a New Transnational Labour Class [so in formation].
The underlying shift is in the nature of the productive forces and productive relations -the shift in telecommunication and transportation infrastructure and the rise of the internet- might be providing us a possibility to overcome not only the new contradiction between the sub structure and super structure of the world economy and politics, but also the organisational and leadership problems.
The 17the September Occupations of Paris and Wall Street and occupations of Washington DC and Brussels can be compared to the offensive of the forces of Spartacus to the Rome, in this sense. Peer Indignados networks call for a World Revolution on the 15th of October. Although it will not be a revolution as we know it from our memories, it will surely be a turning point in collective action culture of networked peers from many countries and open a new era in which the creation of the most democratic revolutionary subjectivity that world has ever seen would be realised.
Creation of a such revolutionary peer to peer subjectivity would indeed be the only way that would be able to lead us to dignity safely. To a better world, a commons based society.
Therefore we all vitally need to contribute to this process with our entire existence.
May force be with us!
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