Miguel Amorós

Technological society—mass society – Miguel Amorós

A 2005 summary of the author’s views concerning the defeat of the working class in the 1970s and 1980s, the role played by technology in this defeat, the rise of the “masses” (who cannot “distinguish between reality and fiction”) that emerged from the dissolution of class consciousness as subjects of consumer society under the new totalitarian or “fascist” conditions, the repercussions of these developments on ideology (not exactly “fascist”, but a “hodgepodge … of previous ideologies”) and politics (“managing the survival of the masses under catastrophic conditions”) during the last thirty years, and prospects for revolutionary critique and resistance.

Miguel Amorós interviewed by Rubén Martín for El Informador (Guadalajara)

A March 2018 interview in which Miguel Amorós discusses his anti-development concepts, the global trend towards mega-urbanization, the destructive tendencies of capitalist development, Latin American populist governments and their social basis, the civil society movement, and perspectives for a movement to create a better world.

ZAD’s Victory – Miguel Amorós

A short article from February 2018 celebrating the initial victory of an ongoing struggle to stop an airport from being built in a rural part of western France.

Durruti en la labirinto - Miguel Amorós

Biografio pri la vivo de Buenaventura Durruti.

When the barbarians invade the periphery: the commercialization and destruction of the Catalonian Pyrenees – Miguel Amorós

A 2018 diatribe against tourism, as an industry that is wrecking the natural environment and the social fabric of rural areas, and particularly as it has capitalized on the recent craze for “adventure sports”, which manifest the “primordial capitalist mentality”, “the taste for competition, for overcoming obstacles, for demonstrating endurance, for the cult of hard work, for risk-taking, for exhibitionism”, echoing Günther Anders’ reflections on this new kind of leisure that is exploited for profit and becomes just another variety of “work” for people who are plagued by neuroses generated in the claustrophobic cities and are incapable of the tranquil repose that our ancestors valued.

Anatomy of a scandal – Miguel Amorós

Submitted by Alias Recluse on Feb 20 2018 21:56

An account of the “Strasbourg Scandal” of 1966—widely recognized as a precursor to the greater scandal of May 1968—its background, its protagonists, the takeover of the local student union and the origins of the pamphlet, “The Poverty of Student Life…”, the role played by the members of the Situationist International in the affair, particularly Debord and Mustapha Khayati, the humiliating exclusion of the “Garnaultins” in January 1967, and the SI’s subsequent descent into an even more rigid and unapproachable sectarian existence until its dissolution in 1972.

The whole world is like a nowhere land called Alicante – Miguel Amorós

A brief, and idiosyncratic, social and economic history of the medium-sized Valencian city of Alicante since the Spanish Civil War, denouncing the negative impact of chaotic development, venal and corrupt politicians, unbridled consumerism, the role played by the automobile in social atomization, the destruction of old working class neighborhoods, real estate speculation, the cynical exploitation of local cultural traditions, the noxious effects of an economy based on tourism, the ruin of traditional agriculture, and the proliferation of hideous skyscrapers in a nauseating panorama of trivialization and degradation that is typical of so many other cities all over the world.

The pitfalls of the social economy – Miguel Amorós

The text of a 2017 presentation examining the significance of the “third sector” or “social economy”, the non-profit community development and assistance sector, its origins as a replacement for faltering government aid programs for excluded sectors of the population, its diversification and increasing economic impact on job creation, service provision and housing, its association with the “civil society” movement, its avoidance of conflict with state and private power and its reliance on parliamentary procedures and negotiations, its ideological smokescreens, and the rise of the “new commons” ideology as a delusional strategy for non-confrontational withdrawal from the system.

The veins of Latin America are more open than ever – Miguel Amorós

The text of a 2017 presentation on the key role of extractive industries in contemporary world capitalism, their effect on the “territory” and its inhabitants, the left-wing parties’ support for export-oriented capitalist development that devastates the rural areas of their countries in exchange for funds to finance social programs, the importance of the “new middle classes” in serving as mediators for the rule of multinational corporations in Latin America, the fraud of “civil society” movements and their promotion of “sustainable development”, and the crucial role of peasant and indigenous movements in complementing urban struggles for “self-governed life in common”.

Vanishing points in working class culture – Miguel Amorós

Notes for a 2015 presentation of a book about the “Incontrolados” and The Friends of Durruti, discussing the “cultural genocide of the proletariat” inflicted by capitalist development and its “eternal present”, the suppression of historical memory, the rise of consumer society and mass culture, and the need for a “non-doctrinaire re-appropriation of the past” in order to build a new culture of resistance.