For Foucault, we should pay serious attention to the file, rather than dismiss it as a mere bundle of administrative minutiae, because it produces what he called “an administrative and centralized individuality” through disciplinary mechanisms of visibility and writing.
Money is the only tangible form of value (the objective form of money also marks a difference from physics, in which concepts do not take on objective form); through money, “the individual carries his social power, as well as his bond with society, in his pocket.”
Every cook possesses the potential to govern, but that does not mean, given the complexity of the problems we are facing, that every cook already has the capacity to do so.
Instead of treating the “party” as a single fixed entity that tries to conquer state power, either by an insurrection or an election, I suggest we think of it as an organization among others, one defined by its articulating function, as that which unites disparate social forces, links struggles over time, and facilitates the collective project of building socialism beyond the state.
With the forms of representative democracy in Belarus having been discredited and disassembled, new forms of organization and politics are emerging out of the struggle.
While the environmental movement is doomed as long as it relies on technocratic expertise without mass mobilization, the Left needs to be more engaged with environmental science if it is to make an impact.
If Black rebellion is often the spark for mass struggle in the United States, white chauvinism is a wet blanket. The materials in this pamphlet aim to move the discussion from a fixation on individual experiences of whiteness toward the broad possibilities of collective struggle for abolition and human freedom.
Mediterranea, a “non-governmental action” organized around a civilian monitoring and rescue ship in the central Mediterranean, is one of the most innovative initiatives deployed against the deaths of migrants at sea, in support of their freedom to move, and in defiance of the drastic policies deployed by the Italian government.
The pursuit of justice has been defined by a rote binary of punished in a cage versus unpunished and free. This situation shapes the demand for traditional, state-sanctioned, prison-based punishment even of killer cops. And yet within the language of vengeance or retribution toward police who kill, there is also a hidden desire for another way, for a way out.
Today’s crisis brings not just destruction, but also opportunity for creation. But to take advantage of this rare opening, we need to know exactly what we are up against.
Viewpoint Magazine