Book Review: Overcoming Capitalism

 

Image: the cover of the book is a navy blue background with a graphic of a red fish being swallowed by a much larger white fish that is actually made of a large group of tiny white fish swimming together. The title, Overcoming Capitalism is in large white letters at the top, below that in smaller yellow letters is, "Strategy for the working class in the 21st Century," and at the bottom in white letters is the author's name- Tom Wetzel.

Overcoming Capitalism is a book that offers information about working class struggle without expecting the reader to come away from it with a bunch of theory without any praxis. I don't have any issue with theory alone, but it can often leave the reader thinking, "ok, I agree with you totally/partly/a little, but how?" This is something I appreciate about Wetzel's effort here. I cannot say this book was really "for me" though. Part of it is purely that I am not incredibly interested in reading more about working class struggle, but part of it is that I didn't really see myself in this book. I also believe that it could have achieved its goal in about 1/2-2/3 of its over 400 page size.

It's clear that this book was a labor of love for Wetzel and as a result, it seems he put everything he had into it a couple of times. There is a lot of repetition. Sometimes repetition can make sense if the ideas are new, but most of these aren't. Did I need to read Wetzel's version of this Berkman quote repeated more than once when someone probably said some version of it even before Berkman did? Did I need multiple other examples repeated to me throughout the book? That said, this book could be good to hand to someone who had never read anything about working class struggle for this reason. Repetition like this can keep a reader engaged and referring back to the rest of the text if the information is new to them.

When I say I did not see myself in this book, it's because I felt like an outlier. Wetzel does indeed make an effort to include women and marginalized people throughout the text. He has examples of the ways syndicalist struggle and tactics can be used to combat sexism, racism, etc in workplaces. But, it didn't feel to me like these things were properly centered. It was not for lack of trying. I do believe the effort was there, but this has always sort of been why a lot of worker ideology doesn't appeal to me. It seems like everyone is a worker first (if they can work,) and everything else second. That's just not the way my life has been. 

The things that I really liked that Wetzel touched upon were the issues with all of the hot button words that end up tied into working class struggle. Medicare for all when medicare sucks. Unions, when they've become corrupt corporate tools of control in many places. Communism as owning the means of production when authoritarian communism is nothing but and is a total shitshow. (I can't really blame ignorant USA reactionaries for hating auth-comm and thinking capitalism is their only other option.) These are all my versions, not his words, but you get the point. This isn't a vapid repetition of buzz words without context and I want to make sure that my critiques of the length and repetitiveness in other places are separate from this. 

Wetzel also does well to describe- in detail and in accessible ways- the various environmental, social, health, human, and other costs of capitalism. He shows how these effects are far reaching and extinction-level problematic. There is a lot of analysis of how to gauge what work is, how much one should need to work, what constitutes "skilled" and "hard" labor, and so on. There is discussion about unpaid labor such as stereotypically feminized labor and discussions of various conflicts that will arise when trying to balance environmental preservation with working class needs and struggles. I did feel like he went further than many workers struggle ideologies go regarding environmental topics (if they go there at all,) but it still wasn't enough for me.

There is a very brief inclusion of elder and disabled people, but the little time given to these topics. This was another reason I didn't really see myself fitting into this. I appreciate that he thinks that disabled people who cannot work in stereotypical ways should still receiving livable income and so on, but this felt like a marginalizing afterthought where it would be the same thing as now with a little more money.

The last chunk of the book was probably the most interesting, even if I didn't agree with it all. Reading Wetzel's ideas for what a large scale anti-capitalist, less authoritarian society could look like to him was a good thought exercise. I do think there were too many things that resembled or would quickly lean right back into capitalism. He also admits that a lot of it is basically a form of government but with less authoritarianism, which I can also appreciate, but still don't find to be ideal. As a person who lives in the real world of 8 billion-ish humans hurtling toward extinction, I can appreciate imperfect but practical solutions for the meantime. I think that any form of anti-authoritarianism will need to cover more of the big-tent than this did. But, for someone new to these ideas or someone looking for practical examples of working class anticapitalism in practice, this book offers some valuable contributions.

This was also posted to my goodreads.

Book Review: The Modern Crisis

Image: The cover of the book is a photograph of a forest on fire. There are birch trees in a cloud of smoke in the background with bright flames reaching up the left side of the image. The foreground is moss covered rocks. Across the center in white letters is the title of the book. Across the bottom is Murray Bookchin. Under that in smaller letters is, "Introduction by Andy Price."

It is always a strange feeling when reading something written decades ago that could have been written today. It shows the wisdom of the author while also providing a reminder that the problems of today are also the problems of the past and future, ever changing shape. The reprint of Murray Bookchin's, The Modern Crisis invokes those feelings. His discussions of topics such as social ecology, bio/ecocide, climate catastrophe, authoritarianism, libertarianism (the original anarchist kind, not the appropriated right wing kind,) and more nestle themselves well in the current time. To be honest, I did not fully appreciate this book until I went back and read through my page flags. I sometimes find myself overwhelmed by political philosophy texts, but when I looked at my highlights, I saw more of the brilliance there.

It has been a while since I have read anything by a famous anarchist guy, but I have caught snippets of Bookchin's work here and there and figured he'd be someone I'd have things in common with. My portal into anarchism overall came through the green end of it and I remain very attached to green anarchism. Today, I think that all anarchisms, when practiced efficiently, are covering each other's bases anyway, so I don't tend to call myself one thing. But, there are times where it is important to draw divisions and Bookchin touches on some of those in this text. The titular line comes from this quote:

"The color of radicalism today is no longer red, it is green, and should be raised aloft boldly if the modern crisis is to be resolved."

While Bookchin does make references to other identity politics based issues, the essays in this book center humanity and everyone/thing else on the planet as a larger whole. Social ecology is the name of the game which differs from things like social "darwinism" and other anthropocentric and supremacist views of nature. While capitalism and authoritarianism create a myth of competition as the primary goal and who misrepresent Darwins teachings as some sort of war cry for toxic masculinity, social ecology involves seeing ourselves as part of the rest of the planet, dismantling and preventing oppressive hierarchy, and not assuming that something existing (patriarchy) means that it should or must exist. 

One may wonder- especially outside of anarchist circles with running red vs. green snowball fight jokes- what the point is in creating such a distinction between red and green. Bookchin touches on this in multiple places, but especially in the essay "Workers and the Peace Movement." Bookchin dismantles the idea of "The Proletariat" as an inherently revolutionary class of individuals or as a monolithic people who will ultimately be liberated by seizing the machine that oppresses them. He dispells myths that activists who disrupt oppressive or ecologically destructive businesses are privileged people standing in the way of and at odds with the proletariat survival. Instead, he sees these people as all humans of differing backgrounds who must be part of the struggle together. He calls attention to the fact that many histories labeled only as workers revolutions were often far more complex in demographics and structure. 

"Let us agree that no radical social change is possible without the support and initiative of working people - or, for that matter, of technicians, professionals, soldiers, women, ethnic groups, youth, the elderly, and the solidarity of the oppressed on a worldwide scale. But no radical change is possible unless "The Proletariat" transcends its suffocating class being and becomes a revolutionary *human* being."

Other essays touch on this and often reference the structure of ancient Athens as a model (while acknowledging oppression such as patriarchy that still existed then.) I don't know enough about that history to say much about it either way, but the gist of his argument seems to be that communities should be run by their members, with room to also respect and include "outsiders." Large nation sates make this sort of thing impossible, turning politics into a performative thing where individuals lose the ability to contribute in effective ways.

I do think that at times, Bookchin's own prejudices and anthopocentrism get in the way of his arguments. I knew before reading this that he did not always apply his critiques of anthropocentrism towards his personal behavior towards other animals in terms of consumption of their bodies and labor. I cannot ask him why this is, but there is always something that creates that itch in the back of my mind when someone is pointing a finger without necessarily pointing it at themself as well. This results in some comparisons between humans and other animals that don't mesh well with other comparisons and arguments that we are indeed part of the natural world like they are. Today's version of this is the cop out, "no ethical consumption under capitalism," which people often do not realize is a phrase that can be used to excuse countless atrocities involving money. (I am sure they would not say this phrase in regards to human trafficking for instance.) None of this means that his points are without merit of course. There is also a batshit out of place quote, "We buy and sell the outward trappings of personality: the sheen-like leather jackets that make humble bookkeepers look like dashing pimps and the high- heeled boots that make bored secretaries look like dangerously seductive temptresses." Temptresses replaced "whores" in the original version. There are so many hopefully obvious things wrong with this that I will not make this even longer in detailing. But, all this is to say he's not perfect. Overall though, he really hits the nail on the head in ways that I desperately wish more movements would connect with. I think perhaps when we include the other-than-human natural world in our movements and analyses, it forces us to look at ourselves more. That can be a lot harder than looking at cops and kings. 

I'll end with a chunk of my favorite quote from the text in the essay, "An Appeal for Social and Ecological Sanity," that captures the gist of it all for me. His audience is clearly non-immigrant North American, but you get the point. It's all connected.

"With each such loss (of aforementioned extinct species, biodiversity, etc,) humanity, too, loses a portion of its own character structure: its sensitivity toward life as such, including human life, and its rich wealth of sensibility. If we can learn to ignore the destiny of whales and condors - indeed, turn their fate into chic cliches - we can learn to ignore the destiny of Cambodians in Asia, Salvadorans in central America, Kurds in Syria and Turkey, and, finally, the human beings who people our own communities."

This was also posted to my goodreads.

Book Review: High Risk Homosexual

Image: the cover of the book is an animated image of palm fronds in shades of purple, blue, and yellow moving slightly in the wind. Across the top in bold black letters outlined in white is the title of the book "high-risk homosexual," across the bottom in bold white lettters outlined in black is the author's name: Edgar Gomez.
 

It was a pleasure to read Edgar Gomez's memoir and to speak with him in (virtual) person at VINE book club last month. Gomez's High Risk Homosexual, stands out in a crowd for its nuanced take on what it's like growing up at the intersection of multiple marginalized demographics. Even though this book represents a the life of a Latinx nonbinary person raised in a world that wanted him to be a toxically masculine straight man, it is relatable to me and I would assume to most people on various LGBTQ continuums. While many of us grew up in a variety of communities with varying levels of acceptance and shame, I believe this sort of thing is deep inside all of us. The euphoria we can experience when we have moments of letting go is shared as well but is not simple or easy.

One topic that ended up taking up a lot of space at the book club was Gomez's relationship to the oppressed other than himself. This extended to other animals as well. A particularly intense scene involves cock fighting rings and a forced conversion situation simultaneously (which I won't describe in detail so that you will go read it yourself.) People react in a variety of ways to traumatic experiences in childhood, but what grips me a lot about Gomez is how he empathizes with everyone around him, including the women dealing with their own set of struggles, the roosters forced to fight, and the hens used as bait. It is saddening to think of a child so sensitive feeling so many things, but in the end, that child grows into a kind and considerate adult without losing all of that gentleness. Many people cannot say the same. 

This story also involves the horrendous tragedy that was the mass shooting at Pulse nightclub. Gomez's account captures just how debilitating and far reaching collective trauma goes, even if one is not on the scene when it happens. Moving through this trauma as well as slowly but surely going from ashamed to shameless is an intense reality that all too many people face. 

Regarding the title, it is kind of poetic how all of the shame that family and community instilled in Gomez, all of the self hatred and fear he was taught to absorb, and all of his careful maneuvering throughout gay life still led to him being labeled a "High Risk Homosexual" in a medical setting. In some ways, these trappings are devastating. No matter how "good" and "careful" one is, their mere existence can be stigmatized. But, on the other side of the coin, we might as well be free and enjoy ourselves if they're going to step on us either way. Easier said than done, but an important realization nonetheless. Even if Gomez was taking part in "high risk" activities, he would still be deserving of respect (and appropriate medical care for that matter.)

The only critique I have of this book is the organization- particularly in regards to timelines. The book often jumps backward and forward in time without anything to orient the reader as to how far back or forward one has jumped. I found myself saying, "wait a minute..." and going back to previous chapters thinking I completely misunderstood a story before realizing the non-linearity of the story line. Nonlinear writing is perfectly fine and often an entertaining tool, but in this case, I needed more organization to fully follow the story.

The end leaves us with some nice grey area, which I appreciate. This is not a bury-the-gays story line nor is it an it-gets-better story line. It is grounded in reality while remaining hopeful of the future, and that makes it all the more believable and important.

This was also posted to my goodreads.