"The society of hierarchy and money in which we live generates violence every day, while simultaneously producing a thick layer of moral anesthesia that makes this violence bearable. The capacity to perceive violence-a necessary condition for revolt-has become something that requires an effort. Daily interactions are a vast, complex game of disguising this brutality. --- The primary rule is to fragment individual activity, making it impossible to view people as whole beings. What would a worker think if the full chain of cause and effect behind the repetitive little motions of his daily routine were suddenly laid bare before him? The machines he operates churn out exploitation, misery, suffering, and death. Yet, he must make a conscious effort to connect the skeletal child he saw on TV in Africa with the raw materials he uses and the products he manufactures. Remaining fixated on a tiny remote control acts as an anesthetic for the conscience. The petty bureaucrat who spends eight hours a day filling out forms does not see-once he is home-the immigrant facing deportation; the immigrant is not there. He does not see the person being locked up because they fail to match the stamped paperwork. He himself has never turned the key on another human being.
The passive contemplation of work that lies entirely beyond our control is the same state of mind that chains us to our screens. The spectators are the very people who step out of factories and offices. One can bemoan one's job just as easily as one bemoans the politician appearing on television." But what if, behind that politician's back, one could see human beings crushed by the law, dead from asbestos exposure, bombed, torn by barbed wire, or tortured in some police station-what if, behind the politician's grimace, one could see the suffering? What would happen then?
The violence we perceive is only the violence that is represented. The Mafia kills for money. Citizens are outraged by this, and the more outraged they are, the more innocent they feel when spending money (the "big Mafia"). Terrorists detonate bombs on trains. Citizens are outraged, and the more outraged they are, the more at ease they feel when voting (the "big terrorists"). So many people-who collect money every day, deposit it in banks, and shop at supermarkets-have never held a weapon, never threatened, injured, or killed anyone. They work for insurance companies, the postal service, customs, or who knows what else; they are peace-loving people who loathe bloodshed and brutal violence. Decent folk. They never wanted to see the violence, and consequently, they never saw it.
In its abstraction, the economy seems to run on its own. That is why money appears innocent. One perceives no violence in a stack of banknotes, and so, it is assumed, no violence exists. But just try reaching out and taking the goods without handing over the corresponding exchange value-the socially determined value, or in other words, the general equivalent: money. Society, previously fragmented, suddenly unites to react against this violation of private property. The capitalist, the judge, the police officer, the prison guard, the journalist, the priest, and the psychologist will hasten to defend it-to explain to you that the value of a thing lies not in your enjoyment, your activity, or your need, but in a mysterious social measure that allows one to obtain the commodity on the sole condition of joining the long procession of its courtiers and accepting the capitalist, the judge, and the rest. They will come to explain the value of work and to preach the habit of viewing things in terms of the time one must allow to be stolen in order to acquire the commodity-that is what money is-and thus to sanctify it, to serve it, and to define your own worth based on the commodity rather than the other way around. They will come to remind you that respect for property is love for humanity; that if you think otherwise, you are suffering from mental or family issues-perhaps seeking your father's attention through theft-and that, in short, you need help, monitoring, education, and integration. They will drag you before a court and throw you in prison. And if you resist, they will beat you, shoot at you, and gun you down. When someone disrupts the habitual circulation of money, the true face of the commodity emerges: violence. "Stealing, robbing-how is that possible?" wonders the citizen, focused on their remote control, their forms, and the screen. Why choose illegal activity over work? Perhaps because someone who lays hands directly on money subtracts time-life itself-from the organization of the economy. They subtract from the dead time of labor the possibility of doing what one wants, of dreaming, talking, loving, and building one's own projects. Less time for work, more time to destroy it. Money is time. Attacking property does not, of course, mean escaping exploitation by the market system (believing such a thing amounts, once again, to focusing on one's own outstretched hand-and thus accepting yet another form of moral anesthesia). What is gained, when one has the strength to attack property, is simply a few more possibilities.
Things are no longer measured on the scale of money (and thus of extorted activity, of sacrifice), but lend themselves instead to experimentation, to the gift, to use, and to destruction. Work no longer appears merely as a wage (the first of its chains), but as a social organization, as a set of relationships. When one withdraws from the wage-in the strict sense of the word-one gains a few extra tools in the struggle against the economy (provided, at least, that one does not allow oneself to be subjugated by money, by the role of the thief, or by specialization). Yet this struggle is either diffuse, or it is nothing. Only when looting becomes a widespread practice, when the principle of free access arms itself against exchange value, when relationships are no longer mediated by commodities and individuals set their own terms for things-only then does the destruction of the commodity and money (a destruction inseparable from that of the State and all hierarchy) become a real possibility.
But when the authorities discover such intentions behind a robbery, they raise the price to be paid. Then the price of the penalty is raised; then goods become even more costly, for what is being called into question is the very existence of capitalists, judges, cops, prison guards, journalists, priests, psychologists, bureaucrats, workers, and bank robbers. No price should seem too high for that."
SOURCE: SALTO - Subversion & Anarchy
https://www.socialisme-libertaire.fr/2026/04/le-prix-d-un-monde-entier.html
_________________________________________
Source: A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
Geen opmerkingen:
Een reactie posten