Monday -- 12.16.13 -- Communization -- Week 13
CONTENTS:
0. About Monday
1. Suggestions for Monday
2. Point of Departure
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0. About Monday (Common/s Course)
What: Common(s) Course Meeting / Conversation
When: Monday, December 16 (from 5:15 to 7:15)
Where: 16 Beaver Street, 4th floor
Who: Free and open to all
”One does not abolish capital for communism but by communism, or more specifically, by its production. Indeed communist measures must be differentiated from communism; they are not embryos of communism, rather they are its production. Communization is not a period of transition, but rather, revolution itself is the communist production of communism. The struggle against capital is what differentiates communist measures and communism.”
– ‘Editorial’, SIC: International Journal for Communization 1 (2011)
‘Communism’ is an ‘ism’, a suffix forming the name of a system or a school of thought, while ‘ization’ is a suffix denoting the act, process, or result of doing something. This activity or process is one that is apparently tautological: communization is the production of communism by communization: the communist production of communism.
Communization is (nothing less than) a theory of revolution, developed out of the French ultra-left during the mid-1970s. It poses the necessity for revolution as the immediate process of communist measures – communization – without transition. Does a theory and practice of communization provide us with a roadmap to withdraw the community of money? How to understand processes and discourses of communization, commoning, sharing, and free cooperation as distinct from one another and more importantly from relations of hierarchy and exchange?
We will outline our exploration of communization with a set of readings that introduce different strands of this tradition and debates. We encourage those who come to choose at least one reading to focus on and prepare some points, questions, reflection on/around.
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1. Suggestions for Monday
What is Communisation?
Leon de Mattis
SIC: International Journal for Communisation (1:2011)
http://riff-raff.se/texts/en/sic1-what-is-communisation
A World Without Money: Communism
Les Amis de 4 Millions de Jeunes Travailleurs
Part 1: http://libcom.org/library/world-without-money-communism-les-amis-de-4-millions-de-jeunes-travailleurs
Part 2: http://libcom.org/library/world-without-money-communism-part-two-les-amis-de-4-millions-de-jeunes-travailleurs
Bring Out Your Dead
Introduction to Endnotes 1
http://endnotes.org.uk/articles/8
additional reading:
Why Communisation?
Gilles Dauvé and Karl Nesic
http://www.troploin.fr/textes/60-communisation-uk
Invisible Politics: An Introduction to Contemporary Communisation
John Cunningham
http://www.metamute.org/editorial/articles/invisible-politics-introduction-to-contemporary-communisation
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2. Point of Departure
"From the beginning of class society, money and value have been the symbols of domination. They became the supreme instruments for it in capitalism. Hence, no equality can come from the use of a means whose very existence is based on inequality. As long as there will be money, there will be rich and poor, powerful and dominated, masters and slaves.
...
"In our opinion, communisation will be the moment when struggle will make possible, as a means for its continuation, the immediate production of communism. By communism we mean a collective organisation that has got rid of all the mediations which, at present, serve society by linking individuals among them : money, the state, value, classes, etc. ... Communisation is not an aim, it is not a project. It is nothing else than a path. But in communism the goal is the path, the means is the end. Revolution is precisely the moment when one gets out of the categories of the capitalist mode of production. This exit is already prefigured in present struggles but doesn’t really exist in them, insofar as only a massive exit that destroys everything in its passage is an exit."
- Leon de Mattis, What is Communisation?
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16 Beaver Group
16 Beaver Street, 4th fl.
New York, NY 10004
for directions/subscriptions/info visit:
http://www.16beavergroup.org
TRAINS:
4,5 -- Bowling Green
2,3 -- Wall Street
J,Z -- Broad Street
R -- Whitehall
1 -- South Ferry
