Communization and its discontents: Contestation, critique, and contemporary struggles

communizers
communizers

Can we find alternatives to the failed radical projects of the twentieth century? What are the possible forms of struggle today? How do we fight back against the misery of our crisis-ridden present?

Submitted by onto on November 15, 2011

‘Communization’ is the spectre of the immediate struggle to abolish capitalism and the state, which haunts Europe, Northern California and wherever the real abstractions of value that shape our lives are contested. Evolving on the terrain of capitalism new practices of the ‘human strike’, autonomous communes, occupation and insurrection have attacked the alienations of our times. These signs of resistance are scattered and have yet to coalesce, and their future is deliberately precarious and insecure.

Bringing together voices from inside and outside of these currents Communization and Its Discontents treats communization as a problem to be explored rather than a solution. Taking in the new theorizations of communization proposed by Tiqqun and The Invisible Committee, Théorie Communiste, post-autonomists, and others, it offers critical reflections on the possibilities and the limits of these contemporary forms, strategies, and tactics of struggle.

Contributors: Jasper Bernes, John Cunningham, Endnotes, Alexander R. Galloway, Maya Andrea Gonzalez, Anthony Iles, Leon de Mattis, Nicole Pepperell, Théorie Communiste, Alberto Toscano, Marina Vishmidt, and Evan Calder Williams.

Contents

The Fabric of Struggles - Benjamin Noys

The Moment of Communization
1. What are we to do? - Endnotes
2. Communization in the Present Tense - Théorie Communiste
3. Reflections on the Call - Leon de Mattis

Frames of Struggle
4. Now and Never - Alberto Toscano
5. Capitalism: Some Disassembly Required - Nicole Pepperell
6. Work, Work Your Thoughts, and Therein see a Siege - Anthony Iles and Marina Vishmidt

Strategies of Struggle
7. The Double Barricade and the Glass Floor - Jasper Bernes
8. Fire to the Commons - Evan Calder Williams
9. Make Total Destroy - John Cunningham

No Future?
10. Communization and the Abolition of Gender - Maya Andrea Gonzalez
11. Black Box, Black Bloc - Alexander R. Galloway

Comments

Arbeiten

12 years 4 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Arbeiten on November 15, 2011

Awesome that this is on-line. Communizing the expensive text books :twisted:

Ramona

12 years 4 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Ramona on November 16, 2011

Wow thanks for uploading this! Am currently tinkering around with the hideously unweildy text file so we should have the text and PDF up soon!

Steven.

12 years 4 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Steven. on November 16, 2011

Great! You could do it a chapter at a time, that's what I usually do.

Juan Conatz

12 years 4 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Juan Conatz on November 19, 2011

Just started going through this. The intro is pretty good for an introduction to communization and the the first chapter where Endnotes take on the Invisible Committee is probably the best critique of The Coming Insurrection I've seen so far.

Jared

12 years 4 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Jared on November 19, 2011

Just started going through this. The intro is pretty good for an introduction to communization and the the first chapter where Endnotes take on the Invisible Committee is probably the best critique of The Coming Insurrection I've seen so far.

Yep, totally agree with this, the Endnotes chapter is excellent. Just started the 'Communization and the Abolition of Gender' chapter, which also has a nice concise description of communization.

Ramona

12 years 4 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Ramona on November 20, 2011

Jared

Just started the 'Communization and the Abolition of Gender' chapter, which also has a nice concise description of communization.

Really looking forward to that one - saw Maya reading from it at Historical Materialism conf and was pretty impressed. Really really good to hear gender being discussed like this.

Juan Conatz

12 years 2 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Juan Conatz on December 30, 2011

Someone has to get that Endnotes piece in the library. I may do it myself if no one else has the time.

Steven.

12 years 2 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Steven. on December 31, 2011

I know that Ramona was planning on doing some of it - maybe send her a private message. You could start at each end and meet in the middle!

hegelbox

12 years 2 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by hegelbox on January 13, 2012

Just out of curiosity, is it known what the people who wrote this book do for a living?

Juan Conatz

12 years 2 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Juan Conatz on January 13, 2012

Contributors: Jasper Bernes, John Cunningham, Endnotes, Alexander R. Galloway, Maya Andrea Gonzalez, Anthony Iles, Leon de Mattis, Nicole Pepperell, Théorie Communiste, Alberto Toscano, Marina Vishmidt, and Evan Calder Williams.

No idea. I assume most if not many are in education of some sort.

Ya_Pasta

12 years 2 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Ya_Pasta on January 13, 2012

academic theoreticians

Black Badger

12 years 2 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Black Badger on January 13, 2012

Yep, professional intelligentsia. I find that I am amused by reading communization theory almost as much as when I read "Peace Love and Petrol Bombs." Since the Marxists have nothing left (aside from the likes of Negri, Zizek, and Badiou -- yuck) the more intelligent have been forced to come to most of the same conclusions that many anarchists made nearly a hundred years ago.

Ramona

12 years 2 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Ramona on January 13, 2012

Yeah Toscano and Gonzalez's pieces are good. And also it's not all in favour of communisation theory, hence the title.

bulmer

12 years ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by bulmer on March 1, 2012

Reading this at the moment. The Nicole Pepperell essay was as boring as shit. Some stuff seems interesting but it's far too academic for me. I just feel like giving up on it tbh.

Ya_Pasta

11 years 8 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Ya_Pasta on July 5, 2012

Anybody know of replies to this book in defense of Tiqqun/ IC?

Juan Conatz

4 years 9 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Juan Conatz on May 30, 2019

Despite my comments above, I have no memory of reading any of this.

I was reminded by this book by Swampside Chats and Antifada who did a podcast on this: https://soundcloud.com/swampsidechats/high-theory-1-communization-and-its-discontents?in=swampsidechats/sets/high-theory