A History of the World in Seven Cheap things summarizes itself nicely in the final conclusion. The second half of the book analyzes the latter three "cheap" things that the authors have identified as being integral parts of capitalism throughout it's history and have led us to where we stand today, staring anthropogenic climate change in its fiery face. The final three chapters discuss the aspects of Cheap Food, Cheap Energy, and Cheap Lives. All of which, through historical evidence and the authors arguments, lay out a convincing argument that capitalism has, overall, cheapened almost every aspect of our lives. The pursuit of the cheapest means of producing food supplies while simultaneously decreasing wages of those who grow and cultivate the food is indicative of capitalisms parasitic tendencies. In the Cheap Energy chapter, the authors describe the processes that brought about the need for the fossil fuels that are the main harbringers of our current greenhouse gas crisis. This demand for the cheapest possible energy to fuel the mechanisms necessary to drive the capitalistic/colonialistic demand have led us to where we stand at the current moment, with carbon dioxide parts per million through the roof, higher than ever in human history. The final chapter of Cheap Lives discusses in depth how the individual themselves have been cheapened in the ever-churning machine of capitalism as it needs the proletariat to even function.
This quick summary does not do justice to the arguments put forth by the authors. At the conclusion, I was personally left wondering what else is there and I like reading the quick blurbs of what we *can* do, as individuals forced into this mechanism. The final discussions of Recognition, Reparation, Redistribution, Reimagination, and Recreation left me feeling a mix of emotions. I felt hopeful that there might be an alternative, for all our sakes, however, I looked simultaneously at the news to see Republicans cut off discussions about coronavirus relief for the masses. It is disheartening and anxiety driving to look at what is occurring on a daily and think of anything regarding a post-capitalistic world without a sense of dread about what that transition would look like. The old guard does not want to relinquish power, and I am scared to what lengths they would go to prevent the necessary changes to offset anthropogenic climate change.
Can we even transition to a post-capital world? I feel like I keep asking this, but I still don't know what it would look like. What would this world look like? What would it take to transition peacefully? Can we transition peacefully?
Hi Matt, yeah I have often wondered that myself. I do not think there has ever been a system more powerful than capitalism. We have gotten to a point where there is something for everyone in our system. If you are a "patriot," you can go to war and fight for your country, if you are someone who feels the need to help the planet, you can go to school. If you want to take crime off the streets, you become a police officer. All of these things do not really solve our problems. Capitalism has a way of making us feel adequate about our lives even though many of the problems we think we are solving are not really being solved because everyone needs to feel as if they are adequate and the system of capital has something for everyone, even those who are causing the problems we fight against.
ReplyDeleteMatt, that last chapter is filled with a groundwork of suggestive concepts and motivations for recreating new modes of global production. If it left you feeling hopeful, it is worth reading again with an eye toward imagining what things might be done through its lens. Always keep in mind, too, that every sense of paralysis, fear, anxiety is seeded in the uniquely historical feeling of alienation that this particular political moment is at work creating. Globalization is in many ways a crisis of imagination which emerges when there is no outside of capital. Yet there are many important social communities, emergent communities, that could never have occurred in other times and places. We are developing a language for them in real time. What are they? How can they be developed further?
ReplyDeleteAs far as imagining what it would look like, keep the materialist method in mind there as well. Ideas emerge from where, exactly?