MANIFESTO

TODAY, the inherent contradictions of capitalism are reaching over manageable limits. The bourgeois states are creating at home a spiralling dystopia of increasing alienation, division, stress, neglect, repression, and violence for the majority and increasing obscene decadence for a tiny minority. while abroad, imperialism has reduced countless cities to rubble, directly killing tens of millions of civilians in the last 2 decades alone, and indirectly, through starvation and deprivation, much more. All the while, looming over the horizon, impending ecological catastrophe caused by the overproduction, overconsumption, and epic waste of industry organised for the sole benefit of private accumulation.

TODAY, the spectre of socialism has returned to haunt the entire world, in many forms, on many fronts, shedding some parts from the previous era, adapted for the particular conditions of the 21st century. Multiple anti-capitalist and broad leftist movements are gaining strength everywhere, on different scales, locally, nationally, and internationally. From environmentalism to market socialism, from social justice to worker cooperatives, from local activism to global commons, from decolonisation to venture communism, from indigenous rights to the Belt & Road Initiative, just to name a few. Even more importantly, today, diverse and varied leftist, leftish, leftoid, camps on different scales can connect in new ways, and have uniquely new chances of solidarity, together fighting, working, moving toward a better tomorrow.  

TODAY, we are in a dynamic and hyper transformational period of history, in which ideological coordinates are shifting in front of our eyes. As a clearer picture of the previous century emerges, as people begin to lift the veil from before their eyes, as geopolitical tectonic plates rearrange: what people think of capitalism and of socialism, as well as all of the ideas associated with and emotions invested in these words, is dramatically changing.

IDEOLOGY

The association of capitalism with prosperity, advancement, and freedom was a result of early industrial development afforded by colonialism and slavery, later monopolisation of fossil fuels, and domination of global media.

OF COURSE life was and still is good for the beneficiaries of colonialism and imperialism.  In the North American colonies alone, according to a very conservative estimate, 222,505,049 hours of forced labour from African slaves was extracted between 1619 and 1865, worth $97trn today – more than the entire global GDP.  Infrastructure of the first modern cities in the USA, such as those in the state of New Jersey, were built with opium profits from China.  The exorbitant amounts of wealth gained from resources kept dirt cheap by the maintenance of poverty and constant war in the Congo, Haiti, Afghanistan, Somalia, Sl Salvador, and too many others to count, is incalculable.  

OF COURSE the West has been seen as the Best, when its Industrial and technological development, earlier than everywhere else, was paid for by mountains of profits from continental wide plunder, many genocides, and chattel slavery. OF COURSE capitalist countries are rich when massive streams of wealth came, and continues to come, from exploitation and extraction of the 3rd world.   The Western bourgeoisie became extremely affluent; but after the petroleum dollar rose to global dominance, the standards of living were also raised for average citizens of imperialist countries.

OF COURSE capitalism has been portrayed as free, when capitalist PR departments expertly worked to falsely equate choices of consumption with political self determination. We think of rich countries of the 20th Century as liberated, because the real and valuable socially progressive victories were won by leftists on a materially abundant basis afforded by robbery and theft.  But without resolving the underlying contradictions which produces sexism, racism, and other oppressions,, the gains made by equality movements in the imperial core tends to be superficial, lifestylist, tokenist, not actually ending structural injustice. Liberal progressive values and social justice without radical reorganisation of material relations, is precarious, always in danger of being pushed back or destroyed with each economic crisis and each rise of fascists. 

FACT: according to CIA cold-war internal documents declassified in 2016, the USA incarcerates in 2 years more than the number of people sent to gulags in all of USSR history.

BUT DESPITE capitalist countries having become so very rich and powerful, there is growing tension and unease in societies plagued by social illnesses, caused by accelerating inequality.  The corrupt-to-the-core fraudulence of so-called “liberal democracy” becomes more apparent with each electoral farce, where time and again, all parties serve the interests of the same financial elites.  The American Dream is increasing unbelievable, when reality is clearly the opposite: for the vast majority, hard work does NOT lead to wealth, privilege, and power.

The association of socialism with poverty, repression, and authoritarianism was caused by particular historical conditions of the 20th Century, shaped by the need for socialist nations to constantly defend against economic violence, military violence, as well as all pervasive information violence in the form of not only propaganda, but education, media, in every sector of society.

OF COURSE life was for many decades difficult during the development phase of socialist countries, 100 years industrially behind colonial bourgeois states, devastated by war, struggling to industrialise from grinding poverty, and being strangled by sanctions, crippled by embargoes.

BUT DESPITE starting from poverty and underdevelopment… DESPITE having had to contend with crippling economic sanctions, strangled by trade embargoes, under constant military threats, invasions, encirclement…. DESPITE ALL OF THIS, 20th century socialist states eliminated homelessness, put an end to hunger, eradicated illiteracy, provided high quality and free education, high quality and free health care, doubled the life expectancy of their citizens, and became world leaders in science, technology, medicine, infrastructure, and space exploration.  

But in Western narrative, the brief periods of real deficiency experienced by 20th Century socialist countries trying to survive and grow in times of attrition and war is falsely portrayed as intrinsic and eternal to socialism.   

FACT: according to CIA cold-war internal documents declassified in 2016, from 1950s to 1960s, the daily caloric intake of average Soviet diet was higher than that of the USA.

OF COURSE there was repression. Under constant attack from not only much more powerful enemies without, but traitors within, socialist leadership needed to run a tight ship.  There were plenty of internal forces which plotted to destroy revolutionary progress if given half a chance: the national bourgeoisie who wanted their land and slaves back, the collaborationists who sold their country for money, the traditionalists who wanted the return of kings, the fascists who wanted genocide and brutal rule. 

But in Western propaganda, the state’s protection of the socialist will of the majority of people in Russia, China, Cuba, North Korea, etc., against these elements is framed as and reduced to the scarecrow of “authoritarianism”. And according to imperialist mythology, this “authoritarianism” had no causes and emerged for no reasons, other than simply: “socialism bad”. 

“If communists wanted power for power’s sake, why have they always sided with the powerless?”

– Michael Parenti

FACT: During the French Revolution, proportional to population size, more royalty, aristocracy, land owners, and reactionaries were executed than during the Chinese Revolution.

TODAY the capitalist West is home to intensifying social conflicts rooted in accelerating hockey-stick-curve inequality, as its claims of “freedom” and “democracy” are increasingly untenable.

TODAY the truth of socialism is re-emerging after a century of attempted burial; and it is becoming apparent to more people that there is a better way to organise life, work, and society.

“It is time to raise old flags. It is time to un-dust them and once again gather under them.”

– Eduardo Galeano

PARADIGM

JUST BECAUSE agriculture and food production is cruel, destructive, and wasteful under capitalism –––– DOES NOT MEAN food itself is, or has to always be, harmful.

JUST BECAUSE production and consumption is rigidly organised only according to the logic of private profit, at the exclusion of concern for any and all else, becoming the cycles of a death machine which rapes and murders the earth and everything on it, leading us toward cataclysm and extinction –––– DOES NOT MEAN making and using things has always been, or has to be, disastrous.  

JUST BECAUSE scientific and technological progress in the exclusive service of weapons development and short-term profits for the very few –––– does not mean science and technology are inherently, or must always be, psychopathic.  

JUST BECAUSE freedom of self expression has been used as the main selling point of liberal capitalism, and its interpretation enmeshed in consumerism –––– DOES NOT MEAN that individualism is always in isolation, egoist, and anti-social.  True individual liberty, to self actualise and reach each of our creative potentials, can only exist within cohesive, connected, and empathic sociality, with communal collective support, love, and care.

JUST BECAUSE the realm of aesthetics, style, and beauty had been hijacked by the bourgeoisie…. JUST BECAUSE design has been reduced to empty signs of status and prestige… JUST BECAUSE fashion in the context of extreme inequality has been confined to an elitist, alienated, and restrictive cage –––– DOES NOT MEAN that the art of adorning ourselves is inherently, has ever been until recent few thousand years, or is always doomed to be, alienated and restricted by the uptight social codes of capitalist consumerism.

JUST BECAUSE civilisation as we know it has developed in the context of subjugation, exploitation, and violence  –– DOES NOT MEAN it always will be, or should be completely abandoned.  

Instead, we exorcise from human civilisation the unjust distribution of labour and goods, dismantle illegitimate hierarchies built on property, end the systemic mismanagement of resources as demanded by profit, and keep all of the rest.  We decolonize, and build on top of the infrastructure assembled during the capitalist era, and realign ingenuity, courage, and work with human interests, life values, planetary wellbeing. 

THE MARKET can not be free under capitalism, when a few players have all the chips and the vast majority have none –– but in socialism, when all start the game with the same hand, people can be truly free to exchange ideas and goods.   

COMPETITION can not be real under capitalism, when no amount of hard work and talent can compete with the Inheritance of massive economic and social advantage –– but in socialism competition becomes authentic, bringing out the best of each in comradely spirit, instead of in a dog eat dog fight for survival while the elites watch, amused.  

INDIVIDUAL FREEDOM can not exist when the vast majority of individuals toil to make a very few elites ultra wealthy; and when individuals have not the support of cohesive, connected, trusting, empathic, and caring communities.

To be rich is glorious, for those who live from their own work.  But having wealth is shameful for those who live from taking rent or percentages from the work of others.  

The working class and underclass show off money, because those who earn their own living are proud of the fruits of their labour.  But those who do not work, and instead own for a living, has developed a culture of discreetness, with strict etiquettes of hiding one’s worth, because the bourgeoisie is at its emotional core ashamed of its ill-gotten gains and dishonest privilege.

In a world without unjust structural inequality, through the gradual material displacement of imperialism and capitalism, replacement of the profit-driven model, abolition of inheritance and private property*, we will all have very different, much less conflicted, less anxious, less stressed, and much more joyful, relationship to money.  

When a 10 hour work week and high standards of living is available to all, we will no longer feel guilt for our fullest enjoyment of products that we have ourselves created.

* property which is rented or used to generate profit

Instead of all spheres of life being directed by the totalitarian dictates of private accumulation, human activity must be re-aligned with the well being and interests of all life.  We can shed the injustice and cruelty produced by fraudulent wealth-based hierarchies in the transition to a new economic system and political organisation based on mutuality, commonality, and cooperation –– high tech ultra modernity guided by indigenous wisdom. 

• The work place must be democratised and liberated from the tyranny of private ownership.

• Research and development must be released from the stranglehold of investors whose only interest is profit.

• The fruits of industry must be made abundant for all.

HERITAGE

Humanity has always, since its very beginnings on the planes of the Savannah, decorated itself with beautiful skins, leaves, and stones.  People of every single indigenous culture in every part of the world have long and rich traditions of self adornment, and have always spent a lot of energy to make themselves elegant and attractive.

And this beautification of the self is a part of the beautification of the environment: Aboriginal peoples all over the Earth, from the outback of Australia to Amazonia, used their amazingly rich, detailed, and deep knowledge of the land and its inter-connected bio-systems to guide epic efforts to design their surroundings, and make the world much healthier, more abundant, and more beautiful than if humans did not exist.  

The values of pre-propertarian peaceful egalitarian societies must come back, to fuse with the innovations of today and tomorrow. The soft technologies and humanist knowledge produced by cultures which prioritise design, music, art, medicine, and spirituality over steel and weapons must return to inform and instruct people of the 21st Century and all of our projects.  Another world is possible, one that is designed according to actual human needs, serve life interests of all species, and the creation of beauty, harmony, and joy rather than suffering.  

When the intimate simplicity and supreme elegance of good design is enjoyed by all, form will truly become one with function, beyond the individual level, to serve all of society, No longer hindered by the arbitrary demands of profit, no longer restricted by oppressive patriarchal codes, design will be an intimate, subtle, and powerful part of the social fabric, enriching experiences of cities and of everyday life in a million ways.

• Design and its enjoyment must be democratised.

• Fashion must be liberated from the alienated cage to which it has been confined.   

• Luxury must be for all.

Post-1945 leftists understandably developed an aversion to design, as it had been exclusively dedicated to the selling of commodities, the alluring surface of an unjust, wasteful, and destructive system. The Western intellectual class have become allergic to everything fashion related, to such an extent that an active interest in outer appearances is usually associated with shallowness, vacuity, and apathy.  In order to move past these ephemeral contradictions, reactive attitudes, and provincial prejudices:

GOODS reconnects radical design with radical politics.

THE UNDERGROUND

All things “cool” and “hip” in the modern era have come from the indigenous, the working class, and the underclass. 

The leather jacket and its association with rebellion is older than Punk, older than Marlon Brando, and trace back to 300 BC, when Roman youths and artists imitated the style and dress of the rough Germanic tribal labourers and slaves who wore skin tight leather, a look which was the opposite of the refined flowing robes of the upperclass patricians.

Denim, a cultural signifier of casual cool, was a strong and durable material originally developed in the late 19th Century for workers in mines and factories, in direct contrast to the smooth fabrics for dress-trousers of the gentry.  

Heavy, bulky boots, fashionable for both women and men, evolved from the worker boots of the age of industrial development in Europe, originally made for factory floors with steel reinforced toes to protect from falling objects: tough, big, and chunky, opposite of the pointy slick dress shoes of the bourgeoisie. 

Oversized cuts, very trendy in streetwear and sportswear, and massively informing high end couture, come from the hand-me-down culture of the poor where clothing from older siblings are passed down to younger sisters and brothers, as well as the culture of the marginalised African American underclass, where loose-fitting tops and baggy pants are worn by gangsters to carry concealed weapons. 

From Slave Songs to Rap; from the manic notes of BeBop to the dissonant chords of Metal; from rhythmic escapism of the 60s to the 90s; all of African American musical legacy and its derivatives expresses the melancholy, desolation, frustration, and anger of the oppressed, exploited, and marginalised.  Whether confrontational or escapist, all of 20th Century Western popular as well as art music was reaction to an incredibly traumatic 100 years which began with cataclysmic industrial scale violence, to experiences of the stressful, monotonous, and brutal realities of factories, inner-city slums, and alienated suburbs. 

Underground culture originates from the downtrodden and spat upon.  The essence of all youth cultures, subcultures, and counter-cultures are rooted in dissatisfaction with an unjust status quo, boredom and exasperation with suffocating bourgeois social order, and defiance against illegitimate capitalist hierarchy.

GOODS realigns the underground with its working class, under class, anti-capitalist roots.

REBELLION

REBELLION is necessary, just, and glorious in the heart of Babylon. But born of bourgeois privilege and existing in the capitalist culture industry, emotionalist revolt is readily commodified and easily gets lost in consumerism, romanticism, idealism, resigned to the dead-end street of nihilism and decadence. Individualist revolt without organisation, much less a cohesive program for actual change, easily lapses into fantasy, retreats from the real world into bourgeois academies funded by the likes of the Ford Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. So the post-war intelligentsia busied themselves with the scrutiny of language, signification, culture, abstraction, and obfuscation, instead of mass political movement and how to bring an end to systemic injustice. 

Without a historical materialist understanding of the machine it rages against, without class consciousness or political clarity, the Western Left gets stuck on futile battlegrounds over secondary and tertiary contradictions for which no resolution is possible. Defiance which does not graduate from teenage angst and does not take itself seriously becomes a shallow, blind, impotent, and self defeating rage against “all authority”, against “all ideology”, which of course includes socialist authority and emancipatory ideology, “Fuck you dad!” ultra-liberalism became one of the most useful instruments of the CIA during the cold war.

Directionless and confused anger, deprived of class understanding, is easily corrupted, perverted, and actually often becomes fascism. Blaming the problems caused by capitalism on the new scapegoats: technology (primitivism), progress (“degrowth”), and humanity itself (over population) – is not ultimately any better than blaming them on Jews.

The post-war New Left saw would be vanguard revolutionary leaders of the imperial core get lucrative book deals and tenure at CIA funded cultural institutions. This post-modern liberal intellectual left prefers lofty abstractions to concrete activity, became increasingly estranged from the working class, and exists on funding from the bourgeois state to denounce existing socialism, and dissuade entire generations of smart young people from Marxism.

And the kernel of dissatisfaction with capitalist modernity from which underground culture springs is turned into mere commoditised affect, often becoming its very opposite (like how resolutely anti-racist and anti-fascist original skinhead culture is now largely associated with racists and fascists).  

So all that is left is an impotent, individualist, isolated rage, which feeds back into bourgeois consumerism. White-washed and all vitality sucked out, discontent is then sold back to us as commodities .

But there is nothing more dangerous, outlaw, and “edgy” than revolutionary socialism, a continuation of 6000 years of rebellion against illegitimate rule as old as the first property-based hierarchy.

The colour black means to us much more than nihilist negation, but something akin to the “Negation of Negation”. Capitalism’s negation of the natural ownership of the fruits of labour by the labourer contains the seeds of its own negation, as the system’s inherent contradictions leads to socialist restoration of the worker’s full agency and command over that which he has produced. In a similar way, we use the aesthetic signifiers of a directionless, confused, and impotent “counter-culture” to realign rebellious lifestylism with radicality.

GOODS un-divides rebellion from the authentic left.

R/EVOLUTION

Many movements are gaining momentum against patriarchal white supremacist capitalist patriarchy in the imperial core countries, as comrades continue fighting the kind of battles that won the 8 hours work day, women’s rights, civil rights, and universal suffrage. With a re-infusion of class consciousness, these battles can be taken further toward true emancipation, in the process of dismantling the tyranny of private property.

But today, sudden, cataclysmic rupture like that of October 1918 is for most Western countries neither possible nor at all a good idea. This fantasy must be seen for what it is, but all is not lost for the left. By some estimates, the opposite is true: new possibilities are emerging where none existed before, as 21st Century historical conditions gives rise to 21st century socialism.

As we keep in mind the limitations of progressive liberalism and the historical episodes in which moderates have sided with forces of reaction, we should also remember that the Bolsheviks were originally social democrats who wanted to use elections to reach socialism, until their path was violently blocked. In a period as dynamic as ours, we must not close ourselves to any possibility. Instead, support liberal progressives and push them forward – when their electoralism hits a brick wall, those serious about change will radicalise.

If there are weeks in which decades happen; these are years in which centuries happen.  

As global material conditions change, technological innovations accelerate, ideological fault lines shift, and as a new geopolitical balance materialises. In these times new possibilities are emerging where none existed before. Local struggles and indigenous organisations can form new connections with socialist states, such as the direct trade deal recently struck between the autonomous Landless Workers’ Movement (MST) of Brazil and China, totally bypassing Bolsanaro’s neo-liberal establishment. Elsewhere, EZLN territories are explanding in Chiapas, movements for climate justice have gained momentum, and global solidarity has arisen spontaneously with the nation-wide protests in the USA. In a historical moment as dynamic and rapidly shifting as ours, new pathways can grow,, and radical changes can occur rapidly.  

If war can be avoided, we will see imperialist powers recede, and a planetary shift, through both reform and rupture, toward high-tech poly-cultural egalitarianism, ai-assisted sustainability, and a much more healthy planet.

a thousand flowers of local socialisms will bloom.  

Life can be freed from the stressful routines that chain us.

The creative potential of each can be unleashed.

Society can be organised for the enjoyment of all. 

Technology can be sustainably used for the wellbeing of all life on this planet. 

What is good for you, is good for me, is good for everyone. 

What is good for the collective is good for each of us.

What is good for the world is good for humanity.