We must transform resistance into construction – After Empire Declaration.
The last 15 years have been a tumultuous period of populist resistance. This populist rejection of the prevailing order has taken many politically divergent forms, from Occupy Wall Street to the January 6th insurrection and beyond. The War in Iraq, the 2008 financial collapse, police killings, and the handling of the coronavirus pandemic (among other crises) have each dealt debilitating blows to the basic legitimacy of virtually every institution in the United States. In the wake of the disorder, new questions are emerging and millions of people no longer take the system’s assumptions for granted.
When authority is compromised and convention is ineffectual, then resistance is not enough. Whatever political force can provide a coherent constructive program will seize a generational victory. To transform resistance into construction is to do far more than elucidate a litany of entitlements. Socialism has far too often been reduced to entitlements, by both its proponents and detractors. Socialism is a mode of governance, an orientation to social problem-solving that is defined by “what we make, not what we take.” A constructive, governance minded approach is what spurs our work.
To that end, After Empire book club will be exploring the history, function, and problems of life in cities because urbanism is one of the most practical and urgent questions facing humanity. Today, in the United States 80% of the population is urban. Globally, 55% of the world’s population lives in cities, with that number expected to rise to 68% by the year 2050. In the United States, we’ve seen cities crumble under the pressures of encampments, drug addiction, and sky high housing costs. Globally, the shrinking of the rural population is depriving capitalism of one of its most reliable means of super-profits and the driving force of capital accumulation historically: the hyper-exploitable rural laborer.
We experience the problems and opportunities of urbanism every day. Moreover, the question of urban life poses existential challenges to capitalism itself. It is imperative that we develop an analysis on those terms to aid us in making personal living decisions (the question of home ownership, etc.) in addition to the need to provide coherent political resolutions to broader social tension we see in capitalist urbanity.
The book we’ve selected is an edited collection titled Marxism and the Metropolis: New Perspectives in Urban Political Economy. The collection is edited by William Tabb and Larry Sawyers. Published in 1984, the book is a robust exploration of land, labor, and capital across various spatial configurations.
Why do people live in the suburbs, and how does the governance of suburbs reproduce class advantage?
What are the different spatial forms that capitalism has taken in the United States since the colonial period?
Why do cities/counties consolidate or separate?
Why does housing cost so much?
These and many other questions of urban life are addressed in the book and provide us with a solid foundation for navigating questions of urbanism today.
As always, we will be doing a podcast review of the show. Questions and comments are welcome!
To this regard, the analysis on the video podcasts of Electronic Intifada, particularly of John Elmer, on the actual war between Israel and the Palestinian resistance is very helpful. One can get a sense of the way the resistance has built an infrastructure (through its sophisticated tunnel system and utilization of the bombed out terrian, etc.) to continue to fight and put out timely propaganda, and totally maintain its functional capacity 76 days into the war. Through this analysis, one can imagine the types of urban resistance infrastructure that urban movements in our local metropolises can start to think about as the political situation leads to further polarization, breakdown, and crisis. Check out this video for an example, particularly the second hour.
https://youtu.be/LzXASFo-cf0?si=H9xbDEsAH6WzMOwO