part of the difficulty with living with work, as an anarchist, is that persistent refusal to let a day just be Wednesday or Monday. to feel the need to amplify each day as yet another opportunity to engage with the Glory of Life, but the racial regime of Capital instead says excute x, y, z and keep it moving. the reward (a wage!) comes in two-week intervals, but those two-weeks... gone forever. labor time, in exchange for money, is one of the most impoverished way to lead your day, contrary to the high priests of hustle culture. our activity is removed from our daily life, whether commuting to a work site from the exurbs to the city-core to only earn wages enough to maybe report back the next day, or working from home and yet being estranged from the very life one typically enjoys at home. (this is not to say that the home is a neutral place when it comes to work. Marxian Feminists have noted that the home is also a crucial realm within the world of work. But, typically the home is a site for the work needed to return to work the next day, whether for the so-called 'breadwinner' or the 'unemployed' homemakers. Though with working from home, the home becomes integrated into whatever organization one works for.)

the fact is that the abolition of work is not a lifestyle choice among all the other choices to be found on the market: you can go 'paleo,' or be minimalistic but you can't go 'anti-work' alone. it is not another consumption-based identity or mere performance, it's a social thing. why? though we often experience work as a singular drudgery, those of us who are compelled to work also help recreate *the social world of work. *though stating this fact of social life under the racial regime of Capital is not about assigning guilt. proletarians (or those who have been so dispossessed that they need to work for someone else just to get by) are compelled to work in this world under duress: we have little to no choice (even engaging in the black or grey market of labor is no exit. hustle is hustle).

so then the exit? we saw glimpses of this exit during what some called the Great Resignation, or the Great Refusal. during the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, proletarians were faced with a contradiction that was difficult to ignore: our work was both "essential" (for the functioning of the capitalist world) and yet our well-being was not. though, what we saw was not so much a move towards the absolute aboliton of work, but rather an important aspect of the abolition of work: the refusal of labor.

as anti-workers, we can help proliferate the tactics of refusal of labor & general work shirking but these are not enough. everyday proletarians, who may have never heard of 'anti-work' or 'the refusal of labor', do their best to do the least every fucking day and they are likely much more numerous than any of us 'anti-workers'. this is just a natural phenomomen for beings who are predisposed to a certain amount of idleness. but idleness alone is not the abolition of work. doing nothing is not the abolition of work. to understand this we need to understand the nature of what work is.

work!?

a common mistake made by some who embrace the abolition of work is the idea that this means nothing will be done, by anyone, for anyone. but this is what the rich do. they do nothing (or close to it, but never as much as necessary to build their wealth to such obscene levels via a direct wage) and live off the work of others. what the abolition of work points to is the elimination of the exploitation of some by others and the elimination of alienated labor / activity.

in practical terms this means that things will still built, food will still be harvested and you may still have some difficult tasks during your day. but the crucial important here is that your activity will be directly lived and directly a part of the life of yourself and whom you make community with. you may sow some chia seeds along a creek so that you, and the rest of our living relatives can enjoy; you may help erect a tent for a communal festival; you may help with child care so that some can go on a retreat; you may help your neighbors push start their car with the starter problem. and when all these acts of communal activity build up, we develop a communal culture of mutual aid: where our activity benefits each other and that benefit is known but exists beyond the constant bookkeeping of capitalist order: for relations without measure.

now will come the naysayers, that say no one will do anything without getting paid: a sentiment which reminds me that capitalist indoctrination runs deep. yes, in this world many of us may not do much *without pay *because we're fucking dispossessed! not only dispossessed of our basic needs, but even of time enough to truly enjoy ourselves or help each other. but when our needs, and our desires, are met; when we are not chronically exhausted mentally, physically & emotionally; when we are not just counting the days to the next payday; you're going to have a lot of time on your hands: or rather, timekeeping will fall as an everyday mental activity. for who needs to count the hours when the breakneck rhythm of Capital is smashed? we associate almost any activity with the world of work. i am not calling for an embrace of 'hard labor' as State Socialist Regimes of the past have done (down with the hammer & sickle!), but that difficult activities feel qualitatively different without the pressures of a boss, the rent, a cop or a teacher hanging over your head. life will continue, with all its hardships, the abolition of work is not a magical wand opening a portal to a pure utopia.

communism as the abolition of work

the abolition of work is either the real movement which abolishes the present state of things or it is nothing. the abolition of work is not a moment, a season or a lifestyle: it is part of the content of communism. by communism, i simply mean a free, classless way of life where what we need and what we desire (absent of capitalist conditioning) can be had and we can live our lives as we see fit. the details of this arrangement would be up to those who live that out, but many radicals have their own ideas (see anarchists). the only way to eliminate work, as we experience it now, is to live in common.

why?

because the very basis of our dispossession is not only divorcing ourselves from our time (labor-time), from our activity (wage labor) but also from each other. this is also a basic need (for lack of a better term) that is stolen from us, day in and day out.

under capitalism, the accumulation of the products of our labor (*commodities *as they are known under capitalism, whether physical or service-based) get whisked away to the market for the highest price and for the lowest possible wages. with communism, the so-called products of labor are no longer destined for the market and because the abolition of work implies the abolition of coercion, the State would also be eliminated from its 20th c. State Socialist role as ultimate arbiter. truly, the metabolism of our post-capitalist communist (or anarchist) activity no longer are products, commodities, nor services: they are just things and activities which we re-create to make life possible for ourselves and those we are in communal association with.

the way back to a world without work is not through a program, a list of instructions or State-mandated policy: it is through each other.

Why communism?

Because our current society is a machine made to create value and spill blood. Communism represents a horizon beyond the current capitalist mode of production for the real history of humanity to start. Our current world is ending and a new one struggles to be born.

Why here?

With the defederation of most Lemmy communities from Lemmygrad and Hexbear, there is a lack of a place to discuss communist politics but without the general toxicity of the terminally online left. This community, founded with the principles of SLRPNK.net in mind, aims to be a place to discuss communist politics without the so-called “tankie” left.

What kind of communism are we talking about?

Communism is for us not a state of affairs which is to be established, an ideal to which reality [will] have to adjust itself. We call communism the real movement which abolishes the present state of things. The conditions of this movement result from the premises now in existence. ~ Karl Marx

Communism a rich discipline and tradition. This community aims to cater to as many tendencies are possible. Unfortunately, there is a certain tendency in the “online left” that aims to be contrarian, to win “debates,” to defend past legacies and dictatorships. “Communists” may do these things, but this is not communism. Communism is not some doctrine to be defended (as if not defending Stalin would cause the movement to collapse), but a theory and praxis by which to revolutionize the world. With Hexbear and Lemmygrad defederated, I think this particular community can be a place to discuss communist politics without the spectacle of contrarianship and sectarianism.

That said, all tendencies of the left and post-left are welcome here. What isn't welcome are specific uncomradely practices as outlined elsewhere.

Why not tankies?

State socialism/state capitalism/the bureaucracy has proven itself an effective mode of development—but only up to a certain point. The bureaucratic mode of development is still capitalist in nature, with wages, money, markets, etc. That they are often authoritarian is often beside the point (but for anarchists, it is quite the point on why not tankies). Many on the communist left understand this, from the leftcoms (ICP, ICC, ICT), the council communists, the communizers, the libertarian communists, the anarcho-communists, the autonomists, and so on.

Capitalism’s grow-or-die imperative stands radically at odds with ecology’s imperative of interdependence and limit. The two imperatives can no longer coexist with each other; nor can any society founded on the myth that they can be reconciled hope to survive. Either we will establish an ecological society or society will go under for everyone, irrespective of his or her status.

It should first be noted that the communization milieu is indeed European in origin and largely does not address our settler-colonialist reality in the so-called Americas. Its largely European writers are conceptualizing from a different context than we live under in the so-called Americas (& other colonized lands).

Then why do we still talk about communization?

[…]

We can think about communization and decolonization as two aspects of the same weather system. Communization would attack the capitalist social relations which exist on occupied land, but clearly it would not go far enough. We’re writing from occupied Tongva territory, known by its original name Tovaangar, and to merely create communism (anarchy) and make no attempt to restore native lands to their original inhabitants would (once again) not be communism at all. Decolonization (anti-colonialism) reminds us that there is more to be done.

The coupling of communization & decolonization recognizes, especially with ever-intensifying climate change, that settlers do not deeply, or even superficially, understand the deep natural history of the land they are on. Here in so-called Los Angeles we are constantly facing the increasing danger of massive wild fires. But wild fires are an ancient part of this landscape. The ecology of the landscape made famous, via its mass particularization, around the world depends on fire for its rejuvenation. What has caused an increase of danger for humans is not just climate change bringing less rain and hotter weather, but also the fact that unmitigated capitalist development has made it profitable to build in places which would previously burn with little effect on human life: hilltops, in mountain forests, etc.

I thought this was really interesting!

HEEEY What Is Politics? is back!

So that this potentiality becomes realized, there needs to be a surplus and this surplus would need to be more than a simple reserve (of food, notably): a useful surplus is necessary to liberate a member of society from the obligation of producing for themselves, thus allowing this member to produce for other members. Work is a form of human activity taken when work creates a surplus which escapes it. Work is a relation between necessary work and surplus labor : there is a separation between the expenditure of energy necessary to maintain the worker, and the expenditure of energy beyond this maintenance, which creates a surplus. Workers only exist for as long as a non-worker is making them labor for their benefit. Work, an activity whose product recurs to others, implies (and maintains) the division of groups within a society with opposed interests. Society is divided among workers and non-workers, where non-workers are reaping the production of workers. The worker may maintain some control of their means of production and organize them themselves, but the result of his labor does not belong to them. Work is a class relation.

Gilles Dauvé – Getting Rid Of Work

Solar Radiation Modification (SRM) describes an array of geoengineering techniques designed to partially block sunlight to mask the heating effect of greenhouse gasses. It does nothing to tackle the root causes of climate change, is inherently unpredictable and risks further destabilizing an already destabilized climate system with more and new extremes. It is neither insurance to ‘buy time’ nor any form of supplement to mitigation. Solar geoengineering is a recipe for disaster that delays climate action and real solutions, and puts our communities and ecosystems at unacceptable risk.

Widely discussed SRM techniques such as stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI) and marine cloud brightening (MCB) carry the further risk of ‘termination shock’ – the sudden spiraling of global temperatures if such injections were, for whatever reason, ever stopped. For SAI this means injections of chemicals into the stratosphere would need to be continued for several decades if not centuries, in effect requiring policy continuity spanning numerous generations – something that is virtually impossible to assure. In addition to severe environmental, social and political risks – which include serious threats to biodiversity and food security – SRM itself poses a clear ‘moral hazard’, risking delays to meaningful climate action that must occur in the near term.

The UN Human Rights Council’s Advisory Committee has warned that geoengineering technologies “could seriously interfere with the enjoyment of human rights for millions and perhaps billions of people”. It has also pointed out the disproportionate impact on Indigenous Peoples, peasants, fisherfolk and others living in rural areas. These same groups have been vocal in rejecting geoengineering as a dangerous distraction that would violate their rights.

I've been frustrated by some people's framing on the war on Gaza, as if the surrender of Hamas or the removal of Netanyahu and his lackies would stop a genocide. Israel is committing genocide. A Hamas surrender will not change that. The purpose of a system is what it does. If Israel's war is killing more women and children than Hamas, then that is its purpose.

What do you think?