Seven Ethics Against Capitalism. Oli Mould
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with each other and the land that have been systematically repressed through centuries of colonization’.40 Focusing on indigenous communities and how they are often marginalized from a ‘reclaiming the commons’ movement, he argues, is an affirmation of the commons as a continual practice of commoning that seeks to rupture the smooth functioning of capital, even in its most ‘progressive’ forms. To therefore think of the commons ethically is to articulate those commoning practices that foreground its most radically emancipatory potential. It is to keep the commons alive and immanent, and never for them to succumb to a totalizing narrative that imposes its will on others.
Hence, the version of ethics that this book propounds strives to move us away from the status quo (or ‘business as usual’, the mantra utilized in the wake of the coronavirus) of contemporary capitalism towards a more equal and just, diverse social world that is experienced and lived in common. The process of commoning needs this kind of ethical thinking to resist capitalism. To protect, maintain and diffuse the planetary commons that came crashing into the mainstream in the wake of the Covid-19 crisis requires ethical fidelities. And, I would argue, it needs seven of them. Hence there are seven ethics against capitalism.
Organizing towards a planetary commons
Therefore, the rest of this book offers a way in which ethics can be thought about pragmatically to organize and maintain commoning to resist the potential evil of capitalism subsuming the (natural, material, psychological, social, cultural and economic) resources that a commons can help to create, maintain, protect and diffuse throughout society.
Specifically, seven ethics of the planetary commons have been identified, which, I believe, offer ways to recognize how commoning occurs, how it can be catalysed and, crucially, when it is being co-opted, or enclosed by the prevailing order of capitalistic ideologies and succumbing to a totalizing ‘evil’. These ethics have not been arrived at arbitrarily; each has been considered as part of a layered whole that together forms a broad suite of resources. Each ethic is haunted by its opposite, a mirror image ready to subsume it if it is not practised ‘ethically’. One thing that they are not is a framework, or scaffolding or an instruction manual. If anything, they act as a trellis, encouraging continued commoning above, over, through and beyond (they are open-source). Each ethic builds upon the last, but they can also be read separately as they will apply variably in different situations, places and events. So through the ethics of mutualism, transmaterialism, minoritarianism, decodification, slowness, failure and love, this book aims to propel commoning as a productive force for change in the/a/your/our world.
Notes
1 1. Spivak, G. (2014) Planetarity. in Cassin, B. (ed.) Dictionary of Unstranslatables: A Philosophical Lexicon. University of Princeton Press, Princeton.
2 2. Holloway, J. (2010) Crack Capitalism. Pluto Press, London.
3 3. Mould, O. (2018) Against Creativity. Verso, London.
4 4. Harvey, D. (2010) Rebel Cities. Verso, London.
5 5. Gibson-Graham, J. K. (2006) A Postcapitalist Politics. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis. For those of you unfamiliar with Gibson-Graham, this is the singularized pen name for the geographers Julie Graham and Katherine Gibson.
6 6. See Greer, A. (2012) Commons and enclosure in the colonization of North America. The American Historical Review, 117(2): 365–86; and Fortier, C. (2017) Unsettling the Commons: Social Movements Within, Against, and Beyond Settler Colonialism. ARP Books, New York.
7 7. Gudeman, S. (2001) The Anthropology of Economy: Community, Market, and Culture. Blackwell, Oxford, p. 27.
8 8. Federici, S. (2018) Re-Enchanting the World: Feminism and the Politics of the Commons. PM Press, New York, p. 110.
9 9. Baland, J. M., Bardhan, P., Das, S. and Mookherjee, D. (2010) Forests to the people: Decentralization and forest degradation in the Indian Himalayas. World Development, 38(11): 1642–56.
10 10. Ellickson, R. and Thorland, C. (1995) Ancient land law: Mesopotamia, Egypt, Israel. Chicago Kent Law Review, 71: 321–408.
11 11. Hegenman, S. (2019) The indigenous commons. Minnesota Review, 93: 133–40.
12 12. Winstanley, G. (1652) The Law of Freedom in a Platform. Available freely online.
13 13. Reclus, E. (1871) quoted in Ross, K. (2015) Communal Luxury: The Political Imaginary of the Paris Commune. Verso, London, p. 5.
14 14. Mould, O. (2020) Revolutionary ideals of the Paris Commune live on in Black Lives Matter autonomous zone in Seattle. The Conversation online.
15 15. Ostrom, E. (2015) Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
16 16. Bollier, D. (2014) Think Like a Commoner: A Short Introduction to the Life of the Commons. New Society, New York, p. 6.
17 17. Hardt, M. and Negri, A. (2009) Commonwealth. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, p. 139.
18 18. I have used these examples of the commons to exemplify my ideas, but there are many more that could have been used.
19 19. For an overview see the collection edited by Micocci, A. and Di Mario, F. (eds) (2017) The Fascist Nature of Neoliberalism. Routledge, London.
20 20. Wilkinson, R. and Pickett, K. (2018) The Inner Level: How More Equal Societies Reduce Stress, Restore Sanity and Improve Everyone’s Well-Being. Penguin, London.
21 21. See the work of anarchist geographer Simon Springer, notably Springer, S. (2016) The Anarchist Roots of Geography: Toward Spatial Emancipation. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis.
22 22. Lovelock, J. (2007) The Revenge of Gaia: Why the Earth Is Fighting Back – and How We Can Still Save Humanity. Allen Lane, Santa Barbara.
23 23. Latour, B. (2017) Facing Gaia: Eight Lectures on the New Climatic Regime. Polity, Cambridge.
24 24. Ibid.
25 25. Elias, A. and Moraru, C. (2015) The Planetary Turn: Relationality and Geoaesthetics in the Twenty-First Century. Northwestern University Press, Boston, pp. xi–xii, original emphasis.
26 26. Deleuze, G. and Guattari, F. (1988) A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis.
27 27. Loraine, T. (2011) Deleuze and Guattari’s Immanent Ethics: Theory, Subjectivity, and Duration. SUNY Press, Albany, p. 1.
28 28. Gibson-Graham, Postcapitalist Politics, p. xxxi.
29 29. Deleuze, G. (2004 [1969]) The Logic of Sense. Continuum, London, p. 163.
30 30. Ibid., p. 191.
31 31. Badiou, A. (2012) The Rebirth of History: Times of Riots and Uprising. Verso, London.
32 32. PA Media (2020) Wealth tax on rich should aid UK’s Covid-19 recovery, says Labour. Guardian online.
33 33. Spade, D. (2020) Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During This Crisis (and the Next). Verso, London.
34 34. Roy, A. (2020) The pandemic is a portal. Financial Times online.
35 35. Markovčič, A. (2020) Capitalism caused the COVID-19 crisis. Jacobin online.
36 36. Solnit, R. (2020) ‘The impossible has already happened’: What coronavirus can teach us about hope. Guardian online.
37 37. For example, the UK right-wing commentator Toby Young’s article in the Critic, March 2020, which I advise you not to go and read lest he be encouraged.
38 38. Cook, J. (2020) Netanyahu uses coronavirus to lure rival Gantz into ‘emergency’ government. CounterPunch online.
39 39. Lent, J. (2020). Coronavirus spells the end of the neoliberal era. What’s next? OpenDemocracy online.
40 40. Gardner, K. and Clancy, D. (2017) From recognition to decolonization: An interview with Glen Coulthard. Upping the Anti, 19, online.