History is a Weapon 14: The Dawn of (Occupy) Everything w/ Matt Christman
Added 2022-06-22 10:00:05 +0000 UTCMatt and Sean are back with an critical review of David Graeber and David Wengrow's 'The Dawn of Everything' and their popular reimagining of humanity's historical evolution.
What can their anthropology tell us about what freedom means? How does their account change our conception of the science of historical materialism? What politics follow from their project and what are the limitations of their worldview?
Music: N i g h t f e v e r - V a p o r w a v e
Comments
I TOTALLY agree with Matt that he needs to give up some of his freedom for the sake of our movement, but that is not quite the case for the average worker, and certainly not for the ones laboring outside of the west. That the problem is individualism for the average worker is a misunderstanding of the situation. Then there's Matt's idea that we all need to shed our egos. What he's actually proposing without realizing it is that we all adopt one ego. This is how you end up with Stalinism and an endless need for scapegoats, but it's also not possible now or ever for our subjectivity to be unalienated. Matt's read enough Lacan that he should understand this. Our individualism is not what's driving the problem, it's an illusion that any of us enjoy anything you could call individualism. When Matt suggests we adopt the same ego what he's espousing is petite bourgeois business philosophy. He sounds more like an assistant manager at a Home Depot than a revolutionary. What he's proposing as a solution is the exact thing the average worker is trying to escape from. That doesn't mean the way out is embracing individualism, it's that the problem needs to argued on an entirely different level. You create the conditions that make it a non-issue, not needlessly force some reconciliation of the individual ego vs the group ego.
dusted
2022-07-17 06:00:33 +0000 UTCAlways a good combo
Elwyn
2022-07-04 17:52:59 +0000 UTCIt’s so funny to me that at the beginning Sean is trying to give Grabgrow credit and Matt just can’t help jumping into the critique
Ben
2022-06-23 08:55:39 +0000 UTCI think matt was only reiterating what many people claim to hate about communism and not making any sort of claim outright.
The Fine Art Revolution
2022-06-23 01:20:42 +0000 UTCJust wanted to mention from the beginning of the episode that if you’ve ever working in early childhood education (or had kids) they love to have a basic structure where they repeat variations on a theme every class. Think like: class begins with a song, the melody is always the same, but today it’s about cats, tomorrow it’s about dogs, etc. listening to Cushbomb’s streams but then having Sean add his commentary fits this model and is excellent educational praxis for the baby brained among us.
BAS
2022-06-23 00:36:35 +0000 UTCI know Matt claims to be a Marxist, so I'll correct him in Marx's terms. Compensation is based on the value of labor-power *not* the value created by labor or labor itself. The value of labor-power is the value of that bundle of commodities that is the minimum, that minimum being determined by class struggle. Like all commodities, labor-power has a price that deviates from its value. In Critique Of The Gotha Programme Marx proposes a society where production and distribution is based on effort. This socialist society in order to grow wealthier would need to cheapen goods. In capitalist society this is done mostly by employing more machines, employing less labor to produce more goods. It does not regard how this change alienates the worker. In a society based on effort, goods can be cheapened either by automation via machines, or by making work more pleasant. Over time we either eliminate work or convert what work remains into the purpose of life, "life's prime want" as Marx puts it. When we can produce enough to meet all desires and do it without having to incentivize people via direct material compensation (money, labor credit), then finally we achieve a society where, "From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs."
seth england
2022-06-22 20:49:20 +0000 UTCre: 51:20 suggesting that compensation is remotely proportional to the effort people put in under capitalism is absurd on its face. Today I will sit in an air conditioned room and type and make at least 5x what a roofer for example will make sweating their ass off in the heat all day.
seth england
2022-06-22 20:30:27 +0000 UTCAs someone who is an anarchist (in the classical mass/class struggle tradition) but critical of Graeber’s ‘neo-anarchism’ (and later turn to social democracy) im expecting to be frustrated by this episode lol
Matt Crossin
2022-06-22 20:20:15 +0000 UTCI don't know about Sean, but Matt is constantly saying on his vlog that the organization both of political movements toward socialism and socialism itself must align with the interests of those involved in it. The movement toward socialism seems at least partly to him to mean the reconciliation of group and individual interests. He doesn't seem to think socialism can be built simply by self-sacrifice, at least where he's clarified his views elsewhere.
seth england
2022-06-22 18:02:19 +0000 UTCRELATED: Ed Ongweso & Jathan Sadowski have been going through Dawn of Everything chapter by chapter. https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills/posts
x
2022-06-22 15:55:03 +0000 UTCI think that if Matt and Sean were truly confident that the only way to achieve real social change is to subsume your own self interests and your selfish need for autonomy into an organisation that can work towards a greater cause, they would have subsumed their self interests and autonomy into an organisation working towards a greater cause. I guess they both realize that organisations are ugly, grasping creatures, and that their own autonomy is worth more than that. I'm glad they aren't tho because chapo and the Antifada would suck balls if they were officially produced through the DSA or something.
Ashley Finch
2022-06-22 13:26:54 +0000 UTCnice
Luke Cragg
2022-06-22 11:40:32 +0000 UTCHell yeah comrades
E
2022-06-22 10:58:29 +0000 UTCOh fuck yes
Ben
2022-06-22 10:03:25 +0000 UTC
