Alternative Economics

It's been a while since I posted, what can I say, too busy doing shit to write blog posts. But my pal Jeff sent me this super interesting article that I can't wait to share with others.

It's an interview with Douglas Rushkoff and Kurt Anderson about their new books and the economy. Rushkoff's comments intrigue me greatly, when he describes the current economy as primarily value-extraction rather than value-creation and compares it to the end of feudalism where similar value-extraction gave "failing monarchs (the dying aristocracy) a way to make money by owning money." Such comparisons provide compelling evidence that we nearing the end of the capitalist age.

Rushkoff also says that the basic market-driven political economy "can be slowly improved as we introduce alternative methods of investment and transactions" I can't wait to read more about his ideas of alternatives and to see if extends this thinking to alternative methods of production, because that's precisely what i've been experimenting with for the last 7 years.

His prescription is not "upend[ing] the market economy. Just lots of activity outside of it." Marx and Lenin's adage that the powerful will not give up power without a fight might prove that "lot's of activity outside" the system will not be possible without at least some serious upending of the system.

In this section Rushkoff also describes how government practices effectively shut down small businesses (not to mention radical alternatives).

You are right that the (rather unconsciously perpetrated) corporate-government alliance usually can't shut down things completely. But then I remember examples like the toy outsourcing scandal, where American toy corps distributed toys from China painted with lead. New regulations were developed by industry and government "working together," which now require toy manufacturers to test any toy being sold to an American child. The tests cost upwards of $50,000, and require a hundred or so units of the toy to be destroyed in the process. Because the regulation applies to all toys, it effectively puts small companies out of business. If the regulation isn't repealed by February, that's it. The mega-corporate practice leads to problems that in turn lead to regulations that favor mega-corporate practices.

He uses the phrase "rather unconsciously perpetrated" but when I think of all the examples like this (polyface farm's open air abbatoir, backyard gardens, etc etc) i find it hard to beleive that big business, their lobbiests, and the senators in their pockets remain "unconsious" of this advantage.

This sort of government protection of capitalism from alternative systems is the modern equivalent of the divine right of kings, which is what necessitated the capitalist revolutionary wars. Defending against such practices is where political action becomes a reasonable justified tactic. Political action (whether legitimate, extra-parliamentary, or violently revolutionary) as means to change the mode of production (see USSR, etc) is a doomed prospect. Political action to defend an alternative mode of production that is already being lived or attempted is another matter altogether.

Forget Shorter Showers

Sura Faraj cued me into this article by Derrick Jensen. Read it, and he's my response:

I agree with the gist of what Jensen is saying here, but have two responses:

1. Industrial economy is not a machine running for it's own purpose, it fuels and profits from consumerism. So, yes, me living simply has negligible direct effect, but living simply is also a boycott of all the products of the industrial economy. Businesses run their machines to produce the shit we over-consume, general reduction, toward elimination of over-consumption will leave them running machines with less profit. Which results in them needing to turn off some of the machines. Living simply has an indirect effect of slowing the entire industrial economy. We should celebrate this collapse, but we can't, cuz the collapse also hurts us, our friends, our families.

2. Nazi Germany, antebellum US, Tsarist Russia are not comparable to "industrial economy" we're talking about fighting capitalism, a global system. This is much much bigger than those other things. "Voting, not voting, running for office, pamphleting, boycotting, organizing, lobbying, protesting" are the equivalent of entering this fight armed with a featherduster the opponent has provided you with. Even altering or abolishing the government (which will require fighting with something A LOT stronger than these featherdusters) is an exclusively political approach.

Jensen is buying into the separation of politics from economics. As a result he doesn't recognize how growing a garden is more than "harm reduction" it is the creation of a non-capitalist economy.

So, he's right, we need to stop thinking of personal changes as political because of their harm reduction. We need to think of them as political because of their autonomy production.

Abolishionists did not own slaves. Nazis thrived because they saved the German economy and were defeated by mostly non-Germans and by Germans who could expect to live in post-Nazi Germany. Revolutionaries are only successful when they are fighting from outside of the system they fight against. What post-industrial, post-capitalist economy is there for us to fight for? Where is there an outside for us to fight from? As long as we depend upon the industrial economy, we break ourselves when we break it.

It is only from a position of autonomy that we can truly begin to fight, where the tactics and objectives become clear because they are based upon defending what we've built. Here we can celebrate the collapse of that destructive economy without also suffering in it's decline. It is through the personal individual choices Jensen is discarding that we build this position of autonomy. It's a herculean task, so we can't waste our time with feather dusters and directionless confrontations.

The Coming Insurrection

"The Coming Insurrection" is the book i'm currently reading. This guy is terrified of it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCU4psxF_L4&feature=player_embedded

I can't wait to see what happens when he actually reads it, cuz it's some dense philosophical shit that you need at least a passing understanding of critical theory, marxism, post-modernism, etc in order to begin to understand. I especially wonder what he'll think of the parts where they attack the left and call for its destruction.

I don't agree with most of what the book says, a lot of it is a bourgeois complaint about alienation, romantic notions about what pre-capitalism was (or even what pre-civilization was), way too much focus on the negative and tactics that are mostly still too conventionally political (they're looking for excuses to break shit when really we need to work on building shit).

But, i do love the way that even the pull quotes this reactionary fox news guy chose include some of the ideas i find valuable in the book. Things like "the elaboration of collective self-organized forms of life" does that really sound negative to anyone? I mean, "collective self-organized form of life" sure makes for a more reasonable definition of "freedom" than the average american is generally able to muster. What will happen when conservatives need to respond to this definition of communism?

It's kind of like the hypothetical: what would've happened if Marx hadn't dumbed it down for the manifesto in order to inspire the masses into a premature revolution? What if all communists were smart?

Curious?
Read The Coming Insurrection yourself.

Curious but too busy to read all that?
Read CALL (which i actually like more).

Curious but too busy to read even that?
Then you'll just have to keep scratching your head in bewilderment when shit like Greece starts happening everywhere all the time. Cuz this is where those people are coming from.

Radical Practices and Basic Macroeconomics.

Oh, the internet, it is a web! I touched it and now i'm tangled again. Fuck. I've got a tour to book!

But Kurt Hartwig cued me into some cool shit, which has me thinking more about this stuff.

My initial response to this cool shit, and Kurt's assertion that what i'm doing has been done before, would be that merchantilism, that transition period between feudalism and capitalism took a LONG time. Our transition might take just as long, and be just as start-stop and bizarre.

But, more specifically, i'd say the 90s (when his RAT example went down) were a boom time for capitalism, if the RAT happened now, during a bust, the infestation would be much easier. I've seen work from Theatre in My Basement, performed at Salvage Vangaurd, perused the Rat Sass blog, so i know at least some these groups still exist today. Lets make something happen now when the time is right.

But, I wonder... it seems (and i might be wrong here) there's an unfortunate correlation that frustrates my central claim here. Seems like radical Theatre is strongest when the economy is also strongest. Which means radical theatre is most present when it is least likely to succeed. This makes sense; theatre (even poor theatre) is something like a luxury for audiences, and something like an expensive hobby for the artists. In hard times we're too busy trying to eat to make or see a whole lot of radical theatre. Hurns.

But, this adversity is a challenge! An opportunity. It only means we need the discipline to aggressively pursue our "hobbies" even though we increasingly can't afford them. It'll be a tough slog, but i'm ready for it!

BUT... there's also the flipside of the correlation, the other causal relationship that kind of makes sense. Radical artists working extra hard to succeed in bad economic conditions will, like any hard working entrepreneurs, eventually contribute to ending the bust and reinvigorating the economy. Then the mainstream theatres with funding will siphon off talent and audiences (just like corporations with investment capital siphon talent and customers off the entrepreneurs). The architects of the reconstruction will be crippled and marginalized by their own success. Hurns. Major fucking hurns.

Well, then fuck it. Looks like compromising, communicating with, working with, or in anyway helping the establishment theatres is inherently against our interest. I withdraw my advice, the BTC can fuck off and die, the sooner and the more completely, the better.

Sheesh! That makes me a tactless asshole, doesn't it. A bitter, curmudgeonly, negative vibe merchant. But, really, i'm not. I've met some very nice well-intentioned people who work at the BTC, people who started with Theatre X's help, and then accidentally dug X's grave. Lots of people i know or could hope might come see my shows probably also know someone who knows someone who works there. Really, only surly punks like someone who says anyone else "can fuck off and die" like i just did, and surly punks mostly spend their money on cheap beer, not theatre. Looks like I'm better off keeping my mouth shut, feining ignorance, saying "oh, Skylight, oh, BTC renters, i feel your pain" and then privately celebrating their demise, and capitalizing on their absence.

But... that feels really dishonest. It feels like pretending i don't know my own interests. That i don't know something in order to better use my knowledge to my advantage later. I'm uncomfortable with that, cuz i might be an asshole, but i'm not a creep or a liar. (I'm fucking terrible at it). Maybe i shouldn't be. Maybe i should take a certain friend's advice and get better at lying. I mean, this is basically what the Skylight did to Theatre X to get that building in the first place, isn't it? They have it coming.

Except maybe their ignorance wasn't feined. Maybe they really didn't realize they were fucking X over. Maybe they had good intentions and just didn't realize what the long term effects of their actions would be. Maybe they don't understand how economic necessity undermines even the best of intentions.

So, then, seems like the proper tactic is to be completely open, lay everything out on the table. Make it so no one can pretend not to know. Maybe i oughta write an open statement to every established non-profit theatre in the country during this trying time, here's a rough draft:

"Hey mainstream theatre establishment! I'm about to commit the next ten years of my life to rebuilding theatre in america. I'm gonna live out of my car producing theatre for free in basements, bars, classrooms and alleyways for audiences that you can't even begin to tap now but who'll probably be ready to subscribe after they settle down and squirt out some babies. I'm gonna burn myself out doing it, (i'm already 30, so i've got a late fucking start) and when i'm done, i'll have contributed some small portion to a rebirth of theatre as an art form (and a growing economy.)

I know full well that once that rebirth happens there'll be a moment when you have the leverage to buy me out. If I've been successful, you'll be ready to buy out everyone I've surrounded myself with, you'll buy out my actors, my audiences, my techs (shit, you're already are buying them out now). If I've been really successful, you'll kiss my ass and talk about how much you love and respect me, and you'll frame the buy-out in terms that make it sound like an opportunity. But, i know that if i take that opportunity it's a devil's deal, it'll break my organization, and it'll leave me begging for scrap roles in your shitty shows. I'll turn you down, and everyone will think i'm a stubborn irrelevant shithead.

Except that now i've written this. I've taught you and everyone else how the economics works, how your well-intentioned offers of opportunities, community, networking, are actually a bad fucking deal. I know it, and I've told you, so you can't pretend not to know it. I've also told my friends, my actors and my audiences. When these people look at your intentions and ask themselves if you're being deceitful, or ignorant, they'll know that if you're ignorant, you've chosen to be ignorant. Willful ignorance is feigned ignorance, it's deceit."

Hmmm... seems viable. The success of the revolution depends on everyone better understanding economics. What's the best way to teach? Demonstration. By looking at Theatre X's history from a distance, in terms of how the economics played out between the institutions, the organizational structures, not how the specific individuals acted under these economic pressures, i'm able to learn things that might apply to me, that help me avoid the situations under which the bad decisions that broke that company up look reasonable. Same applies for every failed revolution of every kind. If we're always learning, learning, learning then nothing anyone has done was for naught.

Discussion at Bedlam

Last Saturday i gave a presentation at Bedlam Theatre in Minneapolis about my thoughts on art-as-revolution and theatre's role in that. Preparation for this presentation invovled first writing it out in long form, (cuz i'm a playwright, starting with writing a long monologue, somehow makes sense) then I condensing it to an outline and talked from that (so i wouldn't just be reading at people). At anyrate, this means i've got a rough essay-like document of what i said, which i will now post here for the reading pleasure of probably nobody but my own future self.

Bedlam Discussion

Our intention as a theatre company, or at least my intention as a theatre artist is to participate in and advance a revolutionary change of the global political economy, a change I've already observed in progress. Today I'm going to do four things.

1. Outline the change
2. Discuss theatre's role in that change
3. Explore how this intention impact the work we do.
4. Take questions. I plan on keeping the part where I'm talking at you relatively brief and general, then go more in depth about things based on what you seem interested in.

Objective 1: outlining the revolutionary change in the global political economy.

I need to start with Marx, since that's who I'm lifting most of my terminology from. Marx has been read many many many different ways, and I don't want to get bogged down in Marxist polemics, so I'm going to keep this as simple and concise as possible. There are two things about Marx, one is what he did right, and the other is what he got wrong.

First, Marx created a radically different and in many ways superior description of capitalism. He starts with the most basic abstract description of the relationship at the core of the capitalist system. From there he describes what happens in the aggregate, when that core relationship comes to dominate and define an entire economic system. This is where all kinds of wonderful concepts come from: exploitation, labor theory of value, commodity fetishism, worker alienation, the inevitable collapse of capitalism. Really beautiful stuff. Some of these concepts have proven more accurate or useful than others. I'd like to get into them all more thoroughly later.

The important thing is that Marx's predictions that in capitalism, the rich will grow richer and the poor more numerous, that these classes will be in conflict, and that this conflict can be seen at the root of all political conflict has been validated by history. His prediction that these trends will cause the entire system to collapse might be coming true now, with amendments to account for the unexpected craftiness of corporations, the power of advertising, and the alchemy of monetary and economic policy-making.

His prediction that this conflict and immanent collapse will result in the spontaneous mobilization of a class-conscious proletariat is where I think Marx went wrong. Some Marxists will defend his position on this. They'll say that historical examples like the USSR are a terrible misapplication of his theory, and they're right, but still, I think any approach that uses the dictatorship of the proletariat, or this kind of top-down-government-first revolution is doomed to follow a similar path.

The revolution has to start on an economic level. We need to develop a new more efficient mode of production, based on a different core economic relationship. Once we've done that, then we can let new classes, new political institutions and revolutionary actions grow naturally out of the conflict between this system and the dominant capitalist mode.

Marx considered this approach, but rejected it because he believed the ruling class wouldn't allow such a system to develop. He was unable to imagine a historical situation where something radically different can co-exist in competition with capitalism. There is a historical precedent for this though: the capitalist revolution.

Class antagonism in feudalism was between serfs and lords. The capitalist mode of production was developed by the merchant class, the bourgeoisie, who had a better way of doing things. They competed economically with and eventually politically defeated the lords, ushering in a new system. If we graph Marx's approach onto this historical situation, it the equivalent of serfs spontaneously rising up, taking the crown off the king and then designing a new society from that position. It's absurd. The proletariat can no more replace the bourgeoisie today than serfs could replace lords then, the revolution needs to come from a third class.

So, then the question is, how do we do it? How do we repeat the method of the capitalist revolution in order to replace capitalism itself? The answer is: we already are. If we look at art as a mode of production, a new "core economic relationship" then we can look at the "rise of the creative class" as the beginnings of a revolution. Punk Rockers, D I Y crafters, and independent musicians and filmmakers are building networks and institutions that function under a radically different sort of economy. As artists develop and improve these alternative approaches, we become a more powerful challenge to the capitalist world.

Capitalism responds, as Marx predicted, with all kinds of laws, barriers to entry, power grabs, bribes and attempts to co-opt the revolution even as it occurs. The creative class lives up to it's name, over the years we've worked our way around them all. Modern business practices, flex-time, profit sharing, informal work environments, and fake "independent" subsidiaries are all examples of businesses benefiting by adapting to and trying to imitate this radically different economy. Early capitalists were imitated, bribed and co-opted by the monarchy as well.

I predict that eventually, the growth of radical alternatives and the slow mutations of the establishment will result in an undeniably altered political economy. This is starting in the arts and entertainment sector, but it has the potential to transfer to other economic sectors.

Poll the audience: move on, or discuss?

Objective 2: Theatre's role in this

That last part, about innovations in the arts and entertainment sector transferring to other sectors of the economy is key. There is historical precedent for that as well. Capitalism beat feudalism because it was better at making wealth through the production and distribution of durable goods. Feudalism was all about agriculture. Capitalism rode the rise of commodities to the top, and then took over agriculture with great success and in the long term, disgusting catastrophic results like factory farms.

Revolutionary artists can do the same thing. The arts and entertainment sector of the economy has been growing faster than any other sector except for the military since the war started. Artists are better at making art than corporations, we can dominate this sector, ride it to the top, and then transfer our efficiencies to other sectors. This transfer has already started. Craft fairs are multiplying like little crocheted rabbits. Organic and community farming is growing rapidly, with results that are quite the opposite of disgustingly catastrophic.

So, lets look closer at the arts and entertainment sector of the economy, this thing we're gonna ride to the top. Different economic systems create different environments in which arts and culture themselves are manifested. Different mediums function differently under these changed circumstances. Painting and sculpture did well in the feudalism because the art economy there is based on patronage, art products are symbols of status. It's essential that they be one-of-a-kind, owned by some powerful figure and on public display, preferably larger than life. This kind of patronage continues to exist today, and it continues to fund visual arts. Under the patronage system performing arts were reshaped to fit the funding model. Theatre developed the proscenium stage, musicians assembled into symphonies. Everything was based on showing how big and glorious the art that the patron financed was.

Capitalism changed that. It created the age of mechanical reproduction, which as discussed by Walter Benjamin, greatly altered the way art is created and distributed. Within the capitalist world the art forms that best fit mass production do best. Photography, film, recorded music burst unto the scene and largely replaced everything that came before. They were easily commodified and mass produced. The biggest profits came from moving many small cheap identical replications, rather than a few unique expensive objects. This created a desert for theatre and live music, who hobbled along on the crutches of merch sales or the holdovers of patronage.

We're now entering a new system of reproduction. The age of virtual or digital reproduction is going to change the landscape just as drastically as the age of mechanical reproduction did. Now mass identical units can be created and distributed by anyone at almost no cost. This has three effects: 1. the evaporation of profit from mechanical reproduction, the RIAA will inevitably lose their war against piracy. 2. the democratization of these art forms, anyone can make the stuff, you don't need a record contract anymore. 3. a sea of mediocrity. If you've spent anytime on YouTube or myspace, you know what I'm talking about. A few diamonds in the rough, but also lots and lots of unremarkable shit.

If the profits of mechanical reproduction evaporate, then we're going to see far fewer successful big budget movies, or high profile bands. This is already happening, the logical conclusion is replacement of movies and TV with YouTube and myspace. Which means these mediums are going to drown in the sea of mediocrity, just like they starved theatre and live music during the age of mechanical reproduction.

So, if reproducible mediums become awash of mediocrity, what'll happen next? Consumer demands shift. People want something valuable, something remarkable. They can't find that in film or recorded music anymore. If they do, they don't have to pay for it, which means they can spend their money elsewhere. They'll want to spend it on an experience. And, that's what theatre can provide.

But, not theatre as it exists today. Theatre as it exists today is defined by the system of patronage that helped it hobble along for the last 100 years. It's mostly still stuck on proscenium stages, and full of snobbery, polish, and ornamental status symbols. It's a weak form, a dying art. Which means it's vulnerable. Which means the revolutionary core of the artist class can gain control of it. If theatre is now near the bottom of the ladder of art mediums, but has an opportunity to rise to the top of that ladder, and is vulnerable to an insurgency, then that insurgency can ride the rise of theatre to the top of the arts and entertainment sector of the economy, and then ride the arts and entertainment sector to the top of the economy in general. From there, we can take the efficiencies we've found and apply them to other forms of production.

Poll the audience: move on, or discuss?

Objective 3: how these intentions impact our performance technique.

So far I've been working under the assumption that "new" is better. That a post-capitalist mode of production will be an improvement. I don't want to give the impression that this is an unexamined assumption. I think the new mode of production will be like organic farming v factory farming. It will solve many of the problems created by capitalism. Most importantly, the new mode of production seems much less hardwired for gross and arbitrary inequality than the capitalist mode.

I can go more in-depth with this, but first I'd like to get through the part about how we produce and perform theatre. There are three parts of this, the organizational part, the context part, and the technique part.

The organization part is most important to me. It is essential that Insurgent Theatre be run by artists for artists. The large bureaucracies that mediate and dominate the theatre world are counter productive. The "artistic temperament" that says 'I am a creative soul! My genius cannot be encumbered by monetary of business concerns!' is equally counter productive. These set up a division of labor, a conflict of interests because the artist group and the admin group. This conflict naturally exists in any artistic endeavor, but dealing with it by making two groups of people exacerbates the problem, and privileges the admin group- who has the power of the purse, over the artist group. Mike Daisy's monologue "how theatre failed America" explores the negative effects that this division has had on theatre. I instead approach the creation and organization of Insurgent Theatre as an exciting creative challenge on par with any of our productions.

How it's organized: All profits from any production are shared equally by the people involved in the production. These profits are small. The people involved need to be motivated by the work as it's own reward. The shows are mounted with little or no budget. All advertising, design, promotion, and admin work are done either by the artists involved, or by volunteers.

We hold open auditions for most of our productions. Artists involved in one production are encouraged to take part in discussions of future productions. Decisions are made and tasks distributed by consensus and volunteering. In this way we've built a constantly evolving ensemble. People come and go, only 2 of us have been involved in every production.

Many aspects of this organization aren't radical at all. They're typical of many small theatre companies, they are the product of necessity as much as by choice. What I hope to do is to identify the virtues of this organization, the ways in which it is more efficient than other production methods, and focus on developing them in order to successfully compete with the increasingly corporate approach that big theatres take. One exciting aspect is the organization of labor. Our evolving ensemble is based on labor that is at once liquid, and empowered.

On context: this is also very important. Our versatility and low overhead allows us to produce theatre in non-traditional contexts, to connect with non-theatre audiences, often the exact demographic that traditional theatre's talk about needing to get in their seats. We were inspired to get even more ambitious with this and start touring when we met The Missoula Oblongata. Now we've performed Paint the Town in bars, basements, art centers, black boxes, a public park, an alley, and a dining room. We've performed with a wide variety of different musical acts: folk, noise, punk, metal, hiphop, experimental, pop, shoegaze, etc. Often the audiences don't know that they're coming to see a play, especially not a full length, text heavy, esoteric reference ridden one like this, and they are usually pleasantly surprised.

Organization and context are more important to me than content. What we do doesn't matter as much as how we do it. But, the more we develop the organization and push the context, the more the content reflects these processes. At least in the projects I write or spearhead.

What I'm trying to do is continue the experiments that Bertolt Brecht pursued. Creating a critically engaged audience that makes decisions and isn't merely inspired to act, but is forced to take a side in an argument and let that argument shape their life. Many of the techniques we employ come from Brecht, Grotowski, Peter Brook, and others, with our own interpretations, and punk-rock conventions. Most of us are self-taught, researching these things on our own, and those of us who have formal training, it was mostly in a much more traditional direction.

Perform for intimate audiences.
Perform on the same level as the audience seating.
Lights and tech operated by the actors themselves.
Direct address to audience.
Actively involving the audience.
Reciting stage directions while performing them.
Brechtian "distanced" acting methods
Actors prepare in the open, and mingle with the audience before performing.
Setting up the scene on stage after the show has begun
Disregard for dramatic suspense.
Presenting audience with naked exposition
Presenting images as symbolic puzzles for the audience to solve.
Most importantly: stories that serve as little more than a vehicle for an ideological argument which remains unresolved on the stage.

A not so quick word about the economy.

From a Marxist perspective the only thing unexpected about these events is the fact that they didn't happen 100 years ago.


Marx's prediction is that capitalist business cycles will grow increasingly severe until they reach a point of such violence that the system itself collapses. This prediction didn't come true for two reasons. 1. government used some unexpectedly ingeneous controls to buffer capitalism's excesses and restrain those cycles. 2. new products (like the automobile) create a wholly new economy, which kind of re-sets the self-destruct clock. These are the most convincing "capitalism can survive" arguements i've heard. I can't remember the sources though.

So, a decade or so ago it could be argued that capitalism can maintain itself through a combination of more aggressive socialism when things get ugly and creating innovative technologies to re-set the cycles.


But, recent events counter this argument. First, with the tech bubble we discovered that capitalist business cycles can become so violent that new technologies, rather than re-setting the self-destruct system can actually accelerate it. The PC and the internet promised much more as far as building a whole new economy than the automobile did. But the economy was already too unstable when these things were invented, and instead of creating long term growth in new industries and new markets, the internet and the PC created a severe short term spike, a bubble. Then investors, hungry for something to invest in, became addicted to bubbles and artificially created a housing bubble, which burst even more quickly and violently. New technology didn't save us.


We're left with creative governance, then. Problem with that is, it seems economic cycles fit within political cycles and these political cycles grow more severe over time as well. When the ups and downs of the market become severe enough to create a major crash or depression, the government can swing more aggressively socialist to get things back under control. Once things are more stable the government loosens the reins and we get more growth, more pro-business government, and less of the ugly things associated with socialism (waste, corruption, entitlement programs). This continues and periods of socialism and laissez faire ideologies occilate regularly. Theodore Lowi has chronicled trends to support this idea in his books "The End of Liberalism" and "The End of the Republican Era". Since the 60s the american government has been on a steady deregulation track and it's no wonder economic instability has accompanied it.


So it's time for this political cycle to swing back the other way, right? Unfortunately that doesn't seem likely. With the democrats continuing to pander to "the center" rather than leading from the left and the republicans debating over expanding the free market or just bailing out corporate cronies, I don't see any chance that any politician will have the guts to use the word "socialism" positively.


I suspect that capitalism's political cycle is as unstable as the business cycle. Our political systems are so controlled by businesses (the media, the lobbiests, the parties) that a swing back to socialism just isn't in the cards.

This concerns me, not because i beleive in socialism. I don't. Socialism is not a complete system, it's merely capitalism with comprmises and redistribution of the wealth. It concerns me because while i want to see capitalism replaced, i do not want to see it go down in a fiery wreck where i'm liable to get burned.


I need capitalism to stick around long enough for a viable replacement to get up on it's feet. A more aggressively socialist policy has the best chance of getting us there. Trouble is, such a policy is anathema to American politics. This is an ideological question and the ideological structures in American politics are totally fucked. The reason laissez faire capitalism appeals to so many on an ideological level is because it is a set of principles that in the imagination of it's proponents will create a utopian society. Regardless of how far off the actual results are from this prescription, free marketeers are at least giving us a prescription. Socialism offers nothing at all in this area. It's not a system, it's a compromise. It might be based on simple moral ideals, but that only makes it seem impractical and naive.

I don't think the economy can be fixed, i only think it can be buffered, and i think the buffering of it requires not only a drastically different set of government policies, it requires an ideological shift in the american population. We need to stop beleiving in the broken system that free marketers and libertarians keep selling us, and unfortunately, we have to replace that ideology with an uninspiring compromise. In other words, america needs to grow up and stop beleiving in itself.


I hate the way that sounds as much as i'm sure everyone else does. But the fact is we're facing a choice between a self-destructing system (capitalism), a compromised slower version of that system (socialism) or a new replacement system that hasn't yet emerged organically and would have to be forced prematurely with disasterous results (communism).

Flight of the Creative Class

I recently finished Richard Florida's The Flight of the Creative Class. I read Rise of the Creative Class a few years ago. Richard Florida's conclusions have influenced and bolstered my arguments. His work as an urban planner / demographer / consultant is a different scope than the more abstract philosophical issues I'm dealing with, but crossing the two is interesting.

Florida has observed great economic growth in cities that foster a lively street level culture. He's found a strong correlation between growth and creativity. From Florida's perspective the most creative people (artists) primarily serve to attract high-quality laborers. These artists create street level culture, which attracts people and benefits to cities and the individuals and corporations within cities.

I am interested in what might happen when the most radical members of the creative class instead work for themselves. What if we stopped letting our culture be co-opted, packaged and sold to encourage growth for cities and businesses and instead create a culture and economy for ourselves? Artists are not receiving anything like a full return on the economic benefits we create. Why don't we find a way to maintain a hold on these benefits? If we can direct the economic growth we stimulate inward, back to the artistic communities, rather than allowing capitalist institutions to direct them into investor's pockets, what changes will that bring, not only in how we work, but also in how we effect the rest of society?

Florida goes beyond merely saying that street level culture attracts the best people to cities, he considers many of these professions creative in themselves, and tracks the economic benefits that creatives (whether they be artists, software designers, or hairdressers) produce. His conclusions are based on extensive sociological and demographic research (p 29).

He describes the rise of the creative economy:

"Like a turbocharged engine... in search of the institutional and social
arrangements that can unleash it's full potential. The real challenge of our
time... is to complete the system we have given rise to - to build the full
creative society that can channel the creative economic energy we have
unleashed. The potential is immense. Today, for perhaps the first time in human
history, we have the opportunity to align economic and human development.
Indeed, our future economic prosperity turns on making the most of each and
every human being's talents and energies (p 241)."

There are many challenges Florida associates with the new creative economy. Primarily finding ways to include more people in the benefits: "creative economy is reinforcing economic inequality producing a greater divide between regional haves and have-nots and also generating greater inequality within the leading creative centers" (p 20). I'd argue that this inequality is not particular to the creative economy and not the fault of the creative class. It is the fault of the capitalist class. Increases in inequality result from any economic growth in capitalism, the more rapid the growth, the more severe the inequality.

Florida suggests a number of policy solutions to answer this problem. He compares the current challenges to the industrial revolution and calls for a sort of new deal, one that's tailor made for the current situation (p 242-243). A New Deal is one option, but the social welfare and Keynesian aspects are not particular to the industrial age, and other New Deal projects, such as unionization won't apply well to the creative age at all.

Part of why the New Deal succeeded is that it altered the labor market by empowering the manufacturing class through unions and public works projects. But, more than any of these projects World War Two met the needs of the transition to an industrial economy. By removing many laborers from the system and increasing factory-based production, WWII opened up opportunities for the labor force who had been left out of the boom. It's hard to imagine something having a similar effect on the creative economy.

Florida's other solutions are more generic; the typical ways capitalism averts impending class warfare. Government regulation, Keynesian economics and Bismarkian social welfare to appease the poor are old tricks that grow less effective over time, and have been gutted by ideological attacks in the past few decades. Even if we did resurrect these policies, i doubt they'd handle the expanding class divide and heightening class antagonism.

If we look at this situation in terms of class dynamics, a more radical solution presents itself. I think our current economic transformation is more like the rise of capitalism than the Industrial Revolution, and the "political solution... required to fully realize the potential of a new economic and social order" will be more like the American and French revolutions than the New Deal (p 229).

There are three classes involved: the Bourgeoisie, the Proletariat (or maybe more appropriately, the Service Class) and the Creative Class. Currently creatives are allied with the bourgeoisie. Creative output is mediated and legislated by the ruling capitalist class, and so it is feeding into and exacerbating capitalism's inherent tendencies for inequality, instability, and alienation.
If creatives shift their allegiance to the lower classes we may see a rapid change. The rise of capitalism presents a historical precedent for such a shift. The bourgeoisie (then the insurgent class) initially allied with, but eventually betrayed the nobility, after running up against the monarchy's obsolete political and social systems. The bourgeoisie responded with a new ideology (Locke's right to life liberty and property). They sold this ideology to the serfs, as a political cause and then staged a revolution.

Florida describes similarly obsolete political and social systems. He says "neither party seems very well positioned to describe, let alone harness, the postmodern value system that comes with the creative age (p 216)" and "we can count on neither trickle-down economics nor conventional social-welfare programs to save us (p 193)". Our elections and other political system's utter failure is self evident. It's only a matter of time before creatives recognize the barriers these obsolete and failing institutions create and set to changing them.

Florida anticipates my thoughts and responds: "I'm not saying capitalism has got to go. Far from it: What i argue for is a new kind of market-based society, one that fosters human creativity more broadly, more directly, and across all social and demographic strata. (p 77)". But, such a society is not compatible with capitalism, he's looking for a paradox. Florida's descriptions match Marx's predictions very closely.

Marx predicted that capitalism would over time, tend toward ever greater inequality. Florida describes many ways that "inequality has consistently worsened (p 186)" and that "social mobility is decreasing (p 192-193)". Capitalist markets are based on price, profit and a particular sort of labor relation. According to Marx, these markets will always produce a situation in which owners who maximize their profits by minimizing their labor costs will win out. Florida's description of a minority of creative workers who "download stress and anxiety" onto themselves and "depend on a veritable army of [low paid, unfulfilled] service workers to tend to the things they don't have time for (p 203, 187)" is consistent with Marx's prediction. Capitalists would rather squeeze all the work they can out of a small group of workers who then have to spend their earnings on restaurants and house cleaners, than pay a larger number of people for a more reasonable time commitment. This is in the bourgeoisie's best interest, and will always result from a capitalist society. But, when everyone's interest is taken into account, it is much less efficient, and it works against the creative class, as well as the service sector and lower classes.

Fortunately, the paradox lies in Florida's overbroad definition of capitalism. It is but one type of market based economy, one defined by certain social norms and labor and property relations. It's possible to have a market without capitalism, indeed Florida's "new kind of market-based society" is, by necessity non-capitalist.

Florida's presciptions for change are also in common with Marx's. Both thought that change is not a "top-down or centralized endeavor, but needs to emerge organically (p 246)." Florida has studied changes of this type. He describes many instances when the traditional labor relation that (in my opinion) actually defines capitalism has come under question. In Flight of the Creative Class he describes how "people love to do creative work (p 27)" with many examples, from musicians (p 89) to industrial designers (p195) of alternative labor relations proving superior. I remember a seemingly endless list of empowered workers changing the workplace in The Rise of the Creative Class (citations forthcoming). In Flight, Florida sums up his and many others' data: "the majority of research on the subject finds that intrinsic rewards are far more effective in motivating creative people than money alone (p 77)". Workers are demanding not only more fulfilling and exciting work, but also more benefits, including profit sharing, flex time and radical workflow rearrangements. They prefer free agency and sub-contracting to solid employment. At what point do these changing relationships stop being capitalism?

The changes in labor demands go hand in hand with changes in consumer demands (trends toward citizen-consumers) to indicate a changing mindset society-wide. Florida mentions how Max Weber's "protestant work ethic... helped to usher in modern capitalism" (p 68). If this is true, then Florida's discussion of Ron Ingelhart's "postmaterialist" culture (p 40), the rise of irreligiousness, and how today people have "redefined the idea of morality itself (p 216)" indicates that there is a new ethic ushering in a replacement for the now obsolete capitalist norms.

Meanwhile, Florida has identified inequality is an inefficiency (p 188) and concludes that "it's impossible politically and economically to build a fully creative society when just 30 percent of the workforce reaps the full rewards of that economy's productivity (p 217)." He also demonstrates that "our society is not engaging even a fraction of the creative capital at it's disposal... doing a poor job of motivating the 30 percent of the workforce fortunate enough to make up the creative sector... [and] systematically neglecting the creative potential of the 70 percent of the population that lies outside the creative class (p 36)." If this wasteful inequality is built into the capitalist mode of production, as Marx claimed and history demonstrates, then it seems natural that capitalism will either have to change so much that it stops being capitalism, or it will be replaced by a radically new mode of production.

We are existing in a marketplace based on very different assumptions than the marketplace described by traditional economics. We can either call both these markets "capitalism" or we can say that we're entering something new. It depends on how broadly you want to define capitalism. The difference is merely semantic when describing current economic trends, but it becomes a defining assumption when looking into the future. Florida's hesitation to look outside of capitalism closes off the most creative and revolutionary approaches to "the great challenge of our time" leaving him to focus on goals and projects that are either too vague and unrealistic or too particular and small-scoped (p 246-266).

Chat with Chad

Last night i discussed all this theoretical stuff with Chad Van Schoelandt. Chad is a philosophy grad student at UWM. He's studied many of these things far more thoroughly than i have, from a philosophical angle. The discussion was very useful. We surely didn't agree on things, but Chad's opinions and responses, mostly skeptical, helped to redirect my thoughts. These are my impressions / conclusions, cuz i like to have all this stuff in one place at one time. Chad is largely responsible for many of the ideas contained here, but i may be misrepresenting or mistating them, and i am definitely taking them out of context, so don't expect it to make a lot of sense.


Process: tell a story, non-capitalist system discovers benefits and efficiencies and applies them. Mindset adaptations, not moralizing. The intentions of the producers do not matter, the results matter. The results, per Marx's predictions are that if artists are developing a new mode of production, it will either become capitalism, or will exist alongside but subordinate to capitalism.


Becoming capitalism: artists compete for resources, those that attract and earn the best talent, most fans, highest donations, most downloads, etc etc will succeed economically, regardless of their intentions, and those that do not attract or earn such things will fail. The failing artists will then have no choice but to work for the succeeding ones, or work with them under an arrangement of unequal returns. Any idealistic band that resists this stands to lose in the long term. The market does this automatically. You could avoid it by forcing fans to like and fund everything equally.


My response is that a truely radical mode of production can resist this tendency. That new social norms will allow a less competitive arrangemet. This required much discussion on the definition of capitalism. Chad maintained that capitalism is defined by private property ownership, and a free market. I tried to define capitalism based on a particular labor relationship. Chad cautioned against using Marx's term "exploitation" to describe this relationship, because that word carries technical baggage and is more specific than i want to be. I agrued that Chad's definition of private property was over broad, and didn't leave room for non-private property arrangements. Various examples were used, which got rather absurd and humorous. There's a boomerang collective in washington state somewhere that just makes boomerangs and gives them away, cuz they love making boomerangs and don't need to get paid to make them. But, while they're working on the boomerangs, the half-finished boomerang is "owned" by them under private property rights, so they're still capitalist. capitalism then becomes monolithic and there is no allowance for "not capitalism".


We got into a discussion of social norms. Capitalism maintains itself because private property rights are socially accepted. Capitalism requires "civil society" in which a vast majority of people do not shoplift, or swindle, or bribe, or otherwise con the system. Post-soviet russia and poland are examples of people adapting to this mindset. Shoplifting is possible. The police cannot enforce or prevent shoplifting on a grand scale. The reason most people do not just take what they need out of a store isn't because they're scared of the security guard, it's because that is not done. When you look further at this mindset it's a socially ingrained acceptance of the idea that if everyone stole from the store, then there'd be no store anymore. Therefore i ought not steal from the store. This kind of thinking is automatic and ingrained in social norms.


I propose that a different mindset can be automatic and ingrained in social norms. The post-capitalist mindset can involve the recognition of the system on a broader scale. I shouldn't shop at walmart because when everyone engages in the capitalist mode of production, unpleasant things happen, ie: externalities, inequality, crime, pollution, big government, etc etc etc. or even, I should donate money to this artist even though i could get it without paying, or download the songs for free because i want him to be able to live off creating art, because i want more art created. The post-capitalist mindset includes a solution to the free-rider problem. Not only do we not steal, we pay for things that we could get for free. Or even give away things for free with the knowledge that, if everyone gives things away for free, then i can get whatever i need.


This line of argument is uncomfortable for me, because it's impractical. I don't seek to alter the mindset of everyone, it's more important to discuss how we can get there. Chad also insists on this. Now, it seems to me that mindset shifts of this sort grow out of habits and develop in a mutually reinforcing process with new economic practices. Chad doesn't see these practices developing systemically. he admits that it is within human nature to adopt this sort of mind set 5% of israelis do it in kibbutz. But, kibbutz is not an independent self-replicating system, first of all, and secondly, if it was, that doesn't make it a replacement for capitalism.


This gets into the "alongside capitalism and subordinate" problem. If artists acheive and maintain an alternative mode of production, along with this new mindset, then all we've done is what churches and kibbutzes have always done without at any point challenging or threatening the capitalist mode of production. Replace "religion" with "art". Obviously, this is not what i want. At all.


For art to do more than religion, to actually challenge capitalism, we need to have an amoral reason that we are more efficient or otherwise superior to capitalism. I need to define efficiency quickly here, cuz people often get caught up on this. Efficiency is creating greater value with less resources (materials, equipment, labor, time). In the capitalist approach to efficiency, lesser value is created, but with much less resources, especially less of the most expensive resources: time and labor. Also, capitalism ignores many costs, steals the materials, and creates externalities. So, in today's society "efficiency" is associated with factory production of low quality objects. This does not have to be the case. The post-capitalist mode could be more efficient than the capitalist mode by creating much greater value, at the same or slightly more resources, or a shift of resources: more labor, less materials. As materials become more scarce, such a shift seems likely.


This goes back to the rise of capitalism. When the feudal property relation (divine right of kings) became a fetter on capitalist production, and the capitalism proved more efficient, the capitalists replaced the feudal system in revolutionary wars and created a new legal system based on their property relation (private property). Chad argued that a post-capitalist class won't become revolutionary until they encounter private property as a fetter on their more efficient mode of production.


I disagree. it is possible that the private property relation becomes, rather than a fetter or roadblock to post-capitalist production, simply a competitive disadvantage. It is possible that a transition will not require severe violent over-through, but a slow take over in open competition, given our more open and adaptable political and social systems. It's also possible that our political and social systems will become more rigid on this subject, that new much more prohibitive laws protecting the capitalist property relation will be written, as capitalists recognize that they are being threatened. The RIAA and intellectual property rights law seems to indicate tightening of this sort. Also, in history (i need to check this out) i kind of doubt that the divine right of kings was enforced as a law until merchants became wealthy enough to try and own land. Similarly, an alternative property relation could become outlawed once it is potentially practiced by artists.


Actually, this is kind of happening to some degree. Many artists squat in abandoned buildings, or rent out unwanted buildings for low cost and turn them into studios or performing spaces. The government then comes in and kicks them out or forces them to get an occupancy permit. Street art is another example. Squatting in an abandoned warehouse and transforming it into a vital space, creating events or experiences of value, is sort of like the other side of the free rider problem. Capitalism creates empty spaces on the train and doesn't allow people to put them to use. This is ineffcient. Punks exploit this inefficiency, put the spaces to use, hop the trains and otherwise become free riders. But at the same time, punks create communities that voluntarily support themselves, communities that don't fall victim to the free rider problem, or that manage to sustain themselves inspite of the social acceptance (even celebration) of free ridership. I suppose chad would just say that these punks are free riding on goods that capitalists create. But i think it merits further investigation. The fact that these punks are exploiting the free rider problem whenever they can (dumpstering food, hopping trains, sneaking in to concerts) and still creating small economies, means that there is a significant portion of the population who is actively confronting the free rider problem from both sides. If a solution comes, it seems likely to come from this group. My guts say part of the answer is in connection between consumer and producer.


This connection between consumer and producer is an important part of my theory. This rising consumer demand is, i think, anti-capitalist. The fact that more consumers want a connection, an understanding of where their purchases came from, especially favoring buying directly from the producer, as in hand-made craft fairs, or merch sales at concerts, indicates a distrust with the capitalist producers, and a rejection of commodity fetishism. Chad warns against using the phrase commodity fetishism because it holds a precise meaning for Marx. But i think, in this case it holds. people no longer think of objects as independent of people, as doing things on their own. Consumers today are increasingly curious about who is behind the objects and what that person's intentions and ethics are.

This demand itself gives post-capitalist producers, especially artists, a significant competitive advantage. I beleive there is objective evidence to suggest that:

1. artists are begining to develop a truely non-capitalist mode of production
2. the artists' mode of production taps the above-mentioned, and other competitive advantages
3. these competitive advantages are strong enough that they grant artists leverage to threaten and eventually replace the capitalist mode of production, either through peaceful transition or through violent response to restrictive laws.

Chad does not agree that there is any such evidence, but if there was, then he acknowledges that this is a process through which a revolutionary change could occur.

a quick list of other potential competitive advantages:
- non alienated labor, cooperation can be more efficient than competition.
- less hardwired tendencies for inequality
- fewer externalities (pollution, crime, stress related health problems, etc)
- greater attractiveness for most talented individuals.
-

Towards a Practical Revolution

This document is now available online.

It's a general outline of the theory this blog is designed to explore and develop. My current primary goal is getting the research and supporting evidence for these ideas together to make a more solid argument for this theory.

Here's the basics, if you find this interesting, check out the longer document, and the rest of the blog.

1. The revolution is already beginning, i am not aiming to instigate it, only to describe it and participate in it.

2. The Proletariat is not a revolutionary class. The revolutionary class will be a third class radically different from both the proletariat and the bourgeoisie (as the bourgeoisie was radically different from both serfs and nobles) The new class is developing a radically new form of economic relationships.

3. These new economic relationships will prove to be more efficient and are begining to grow a new economic system to rival and replace capitalism.

4. Political action (violent or peaceful) will be a part of this revolution only when the capitalists use state power and force to maintain their obsolete system by attempting to outlaw or inhibit the growing power of it's replacement.

5. The new economy is based on creativity. The revolutionary class is the creative class. Art is the new form of economic relations.

6. This new economy will begin in the growing art/entertainment sector of our economy, but will spread to other sectors as it proves superior to the capitalist form.

7. Live performance (theatre, live music) is the most revolutionary (and will shortly be the most popular and important) art form. If we (artists) can gain control of the live performance section of the entertainment industry, we can kick start the revolution.

Conversation with Jennifer Rupp

I recently let Jennifer Rupp read the working draft of Paint the Town, my new play which we'll be taking on tour out East this summer. Her reaction spurred a long email exchange that helped me articulate my ideas better. I've cleaned this conversation up a bit and present it here now.

JENNIFER RUPP: I think you will do very well with this piece. It will appeal to your audience because of the danger it suggests, the railing against everything, the frustration of wanting change but not knowing why or how or what for, the notion of tearing it all down and starting from nothing.
And some day, I do think you will use your super powers to make a positive change - perhaps to heal racism, end war, feed children - something real and achievable. But in the meantime, this stuff will sell tickets.

REX WINSOME: I'm glad you think it's good, that it'll be successful. I can see where you're coming from with your critique. I like to think that using my "super powers" to advance a radical position (something that isn't just tearing everything down, but that's still radical, the thing that is only suggested in this play, but will be overtly stated in literature distributed along with it) is the most realistic way to truly achieve any of the solutions you mention. But, that's a matter of political differences.

JR: If you can send me any of the other literature that might help me understand what it is you are trying to do, I'd really appreciate it. I had thought your radical stance was one that had to do with changing the face of theater, increasing it's vocabulary, revolutionizing what we accept as entertainment. I hadn't really thought that you were more political and were using conventional theater to communicate radical ideas. Or at least that's what it seems like.

RW: I've got weird ideas about the relationship between art and politics. It's largely informed by Marxist economic theory. I'm working on a thorough and concise statement, which I hope to distribute on the tour. The initial summary of that is here. (http://rwinsome.blogspot.com/2008/02/abstracts.html)

To me, the process of creating art in this alternative way is a political action because it challenges the dominant economic system, the content of the plays is secondary. I write about what I find interesting because I think it's more entertaining. I'm pre-occupied with political action, so that ends up being in all my plays. My experiences have proven to me that conventional politics are useless and that non-violent demonstrations are just self-absorbed back-patting more than actual attempts to change things. This leaves violent action- but it seems (I can't REALLY say, having no actual experience with it) that violent action falls for many of the same problems as pacifism. That's what Bring the War Home was about. It's critical of all forms of political action, but it doesn't state any alternative other than the implied alternative of theatre, implied only by the fact that what we are doing is theatre.

Ulysses' Crewmen is a big two act play I've been writing for years (before forming the theatre company even) and hope to produce by summer of '09, does the same thing as BTWH only more thoroughly, and touching on a variety of other issues.

Paint the Town is the first time I'm trying to talk about the alternative. The characters are fully immersed in violent political action, in tearing everything down, but at the end Nadia discovers and embraces art as a positive constructive alternative. That's what it's supposed to say, anyhow.

JR: Rex, I can't remember if I sent you the link to Charlie Rose's interview with Tom Stoppard, but the gist of one comment Stoppard made that affected me so deeply what that, in societies where freedom of speech is non-existent and where people are constantly in jeopardy if they speak against the system, poets and artists are valued. They are a precious commodity because, embedded in their work is the voice of freedom and change. They are precious because they are heroic. They risk their lives every day. Unfortunately, in societies where everyone is free to say whatever they like, whenever they like and can rail against the system as much as they like, artists and poets are devalued. They are a dime a dozen, so to speak. No one listens to them. They no longer seem heroic.
This comment really bothered me and maybe because I fear it's probably true.
At any rate, addressing political action on stage is good and I think the theater is a powerful medium for it. Your abstract is great. I have a little trouble following it only because I'm not familiar with all the references you make. Right now, it sounds more like you are preparing this for your masters or doctoral degree. Students have a need for prefacing an argument with, "This is all the stuff I've read, so I am very smart, so you should believe whatever I say." However, if you are preparing this to give to your audience, they don't give a rats ass about all the stuff you've read. What they want to know is, what are you selling. I can't tell yet what it is you are selling. You talk a whole lot about what doesn't work. You talk a whole lot about revolution and radicalism. But you never talk about the thing, the end result. To what end is all this revolution? What is the utopia? And who will drive the buses?

RW: The abstract, to some degree, is overly-academic. I want to bounce it off some academic types to make sure it holds water before writing it in more plain-speak. But, at the same time, the end product won't just be a description of what I'm selling, because Utopianism is part of what I'm trying to get people to think outside of. Selling dreams of Utopia is a flawed approach. Marx went to great lengths to refute Utopians, to advance a scientific socialism, and as a result had a HUGE impact on economics, philosophy, and (with Max Weber) the invention of sociology.

Marx wrote three huge volumes (thousand pages each) describing direct observations of the tendencies of capitalism and how it's inevitably flawed. Modern economists have been able to disprove many of his claims, and have forestalled capitalism's collapse, but no one has solidly refuted the essence of the argument, that the two central tendencies of capitalism are self-destructive. The tendency toward the accumulation of wealth in an ever smaller number of hands and the immiseration of an ever greater number of people is unsustainable. This claim is also supported by observed evidence. I'm sure you've heard the stats, the top 10% controlling 90% of the wealth (and that's conservative, cuz I don't know the numbers off hand, and don't want to overstate myself).

So, the gist of what Marx spoke of when he was observing and talking scientifically holds true today. He resisted talking about the revolution and the future society because he couldn't speak scientifically about it. Eventually, he submitted to calls similar to yours, and did talk about it, one chapter in Capital I, a section of the manifesto, and a few other documents. These are some of the most flawed parts of his work. This is the part where he says the proletariat will rise up, appropriate the means of production from their capitalist oppressors, form a dictatorship of the proletariat, and then end all class conflict for all time, causing the state to wither away. These claims are mostly illogical and without merit. He falls into the kind of Utopianism he railed against. These are also the passages that Lenin and Stalin ran with to justify the creation of the USSR, and Mao for the cultural revolution, and Pol Pot for Kmer Rouge.

The purpose of my whole project (the theory, the application of the theory, the play, indeed the whole company) is to say: Marx shouldn't have given in to utopianism, the results aren't pretty. But, it doesn't have to end with "capitalism is doomed" we've reached a point where we can start to observe, describe and participate in the revolution, and the revolution I'm observing is completely different from the revolution Marx described, or that Stalin applied. It's a lot more like the capitalist revolution, which is nice, cuz the capitalist revolution 1. succeeded, and 2. brought democracy, scientific advancements, and "freedom" with it.

My goal is for people to understand this process, that the process is happening, and that we can participate in it. As far as what exactly it will result in, I can't really say without making the same utopian mistake that Marx made.

I can say it looks like there's a growth in the value of non-material goods, ie experiences (which should make for more environmental sustainability, especially if those experiences aren't, y'know, pro-sports, or offroading in your SUV). I can say that the results don't seem to be as much hard-wired for the accumulation of wealth in an increasingly small section of the population (which should make for less poverty, racism, etc). I can say that my process is based on greater interaction between consumers and producers, that it reduces the role of owners, who are basically middle men who mediate consumer's wants and exploit producer's labor. This should tend toward more freedom, and a more decentralized social organization.

As far as audiences not giving a shit about what I've read and how smart I am, I think that's first, a false conceptualization of what's going on when someone references something and second, it's half of what I seek to change.

Your comment "This is all the stuff I've read, so I am very smart, so you should believe whatever I say." is, I think, an anti-intellectual bias on your part. It's a somewhat offensive stereotype not only of myself as an academic, but also of audiences. Academics (the good ones) aren't seeking to show how smart they are, they are trying to put what they're saying into a historical and cultural framework. Many of today's audiences might not "get" it because they lack that framework, but that does not have to always be true. If you look at the effort some audiences are willing to do to understand Shakespeare, or even more to the point, the pouring over statistics, rules, and methodology involved in being a sports fan, it's clear that people are capable of engaging with sophisticated entertainment, including these kind of ideas, and some audiences, myself for example, already do.

This is where the part about "revolutionizing what people accept as entertainment" comes in. If we can get audiences to engage with the questions about who is controlling their lives and how they interact with the world with as much rigor as they engage with Monday-morning quarter-backing, then we're well on our way to some kind of social change that I think it's safe to assume with be an improvement. If instead, we spoon-feed them utopian visions the best we can hope for is useless dreaming, because the historical result of people acting decisively on impractical hopes for a new society is worse than nothing.

JR: Rex, this is awesome. I am missing much of what you reference from my reading list and so it's difficult for me to make the leaps. My comment, (which I realize now sounded insulting and I'm sorry) was made more to remind you that many people haven't spent the same amount of time studying the same material you have and need be filled in (not just sited). Plus, many of us have spent a lifetime being taught to mistrust any form or Marxism or Communism and have seen first hand their sad demise. It's so hard to get through those barriers. It's like telling a Christian there is no God. It's embedded at such an early age. Younger people don't have that incredible bias - the learned fear. They will be easier to reach. They will be more open to consider alternatives. But it does need to start now. The seeds of social change are almost always planted in our art. You will do this. You can start a political theater movement and I think it will be wonderful.

Why do you suppose it's so hard or dangerous to talk about the end result? It kind of reminds me of how politicians running for office tell everyone that they have a plan for changing something and when people ask them to explain the plan they tell them that it's all up here (gesturing to their small brains) and that they will reveal the master plan once they are elected. But, of course, there never is a master plan and nothing changes when they get into office. Do you have an understanding of the mechanics of changing from a Capitalist to a Socialist government? Is it gradual? Do we start with socialized medicine and move on to other projects from there? Do we insist on breaking up monopolies and tax the hell out of the wealthy? I'm so resistant to more government in my life that it's really hard for me to visualize a new way of life without fearing that I would give up some of my freedom to some governing monster.

France is Socialist, right? How's that working out?

RW: I don't like utopias for two reasons. First, Utopians embrace the future perfection as an ephemeral hoped-for object. This kind of hope (impractical, ungrounded) doesn't direct real action and becomes a paralyzing force. Second, Utopians seem to hate the existing society and embrace some nostalgia for the past, and when the past is shown to be messy they move further to the past, and pretty soon people are advocating a return to primordial divine savage pre-agriculture society, because we can't prove that wasn't perfect and flawless. These people (I've known many of them, used to be one myself) get caught in very negative guilt traps, where the things they want (and maybe even need) on a day to day basis go against the utopian ideal, they're constantly compromising their principles, hating themselves for it, then acting in a symbolic way (anti-war protests for example) to reassure themselves that they are good people, but these actions are only symbolic, whereas their actual actions are ones that perpetuate the system they hate, which feed back into their self-hatred. It's a cycle, which can easily tapped by opportunistic politicians who can advance an agenda of radical destruction to break the cycle, which is actually just a cover for a corrupt and oppressive regime. This is the thing that Red [in the Paint the Town] would do, and that Mensche is struggling with, and I hope to make it a bit more clear in the new draft.

I prefer steady progress toward the future, embracing that which works well in capitalism (which I think is the best economic system to date) and building on that to improvements (which requires a radical rejection of the inefficiencies or excesses of capitalism, but only in favor of something more efficient). If we focus on the process economically and let the future society form organically out of that, we can have specific impetus and direction. If we look at how artists are challenging the basic labor and property relations going on in our society (which they are, some of them) and participate in those challenges, help win them, then an improved world (which we can't know the exact shape of) can come out of that.

It doesn't involve government and I wouldn't call it socialism. Government is a mechanism that perpetuates capitalism by reducing it's worst excesses. If capitalism is not sustainable, government intervention serves capitalism by slowing down it's self-destruction. Socialism (in France and elsewhere) just redistributes the wealth that capitalism creates. The basic economic relationships (exploitation, private property, market exchange) are unaltered.

The basic economic nuts and bolts of this are: 1. Capitalism is based on commodities, but today many people prefer to act on the basis of art experiences. 2. Capitalism's property relation is private ownership, in the realm of art this property relation is enforced through intellectual property laws. These laws are being challenged or ignored by many people who prefer to share with indirect compensation. 3. Capitalism's labor relation is based on wage-slavery, exploitation. I'm using these terms scientifically, not judgmentally. Exploitation is "the appropriation of surplus value" and I consider it a good thing. It's what makes capitalism better than the outright slavery that came before it. But the creative class is doing something better still: free-agency and cooperative collaboration. 4. Capitalist exchange value is based on supply and demand, the "free" market. I have to admit I haven't really got an answer to that one yet, but three out of four ain't bad.

It seems to me the people who employ these alternatives to the capitalist way are creating greater value with less tendency for negative side effects (environmental destruction, social inequality and instability), this makes me confident that these people are doing something that is better than capitalism, and will make for a better world than the capitalist world. Thus, I choose to participate in the alternatives, and promote them.

Refused.

I was listening to The Shape of Punk to Come at work today and I had a lag in activity and read the liner notes and they nearly bring me to tears. When i first read them years ago i was startled by how well they expressed ideas that were half-formed and totally inarticulate in my head. I continue to be amazed at how clearly these punks recognized the relationship between art and politics, how they expressed that relationship in their music, and how they seemed to be LIVING it.

Anyway, read the liner notes here: http://www.burningheart.com/refused/refmanifest1.htm

Refused broke up after this album. (read their equally inspiring "final communique" here: http://www.burningheart.com/refused/refmanifest5.htm) They split up and did other things, some of wich (TEXT) blow me away as much or more than this album does. Others of which (the international noise consipiracy) seem to have focused on the anti-capitalist sloganeering politics at the expense of the ideas, and the music.

I guess, what i'm looking for here, is: how can we do better? This band is who i'm talking about when i talk about a "movement we're participating in" as opposed to "my ideas". Refused were the creative class working with uncompromising dedication to acheive things overtly outside of the capitalist system. Many others are as well. Refused did it really well and overtly with, self-awareness, and a spirit of not only optimism, but inevitability.

Then they failed.

They failed because they couldn't escape commodification or the roles our society puts artists into.

Paint the Town is in some ways the most severe and violent play I've written, but it's also my first attempt to just come out and say what I'm trying to do on stage (as opposed to criticizing the two maintsream approaches and passively offering my ideas as an unspoken alternative). I've finished the first draft and at all the key points I've replaced phrases like "the future" "utopia" or "progress" with "[something that isn't cliche]" or else i've just let cliche's in as irksome placeholders that I hope to replace with words that hold real content. That, to quote Refused: "demand revolution here and now, and not in some vague future that all reactionary leftist fundamentalists and reformists are talking about."

Is this even possible? Or has our language been too thoroughly co-opted and sanitized by the mass media and the ruling class it serves?

The Artsy Schmartzy Round Table.

I put together my answers to most of the questions (the ones I have something to say about) from Jonathan West’s Artists Round Table discussion, which I thought was a great success, even though a bit too much (and any at all is too much) of the time was spent whining about needing money and attention.

Anyway, here’s my thoughts.

Each of these questions presupposes a different definition of the word “art”. There are definitions based on the artist’s intention, on the social status symbols, on functionality, on audience reaction, on social purpose and even on froofy soul-feeding quasi-religious magical nonsense, which only serves to confuse things even more.

Really, we need ten or so new words, each replacing “art” in a different context. So, for the rest of this document I am going to sacrifice consistency in favor of clarity (I hope) and follow the definition of art that each question seems to imply or apply.

The questions are paraphrased, shortened, not directly quoted here, and I may be misinterpreting them, but y’know, shit happens.

How conservative are MKE’s audiences? Are there ways to make audiences more receptive to things that are new or challenging—or is the very idea of “new” challenging?

The establishment audience is fairly conservative, but a conservative mainstream is always accompanied by a radical fringe or underground. “New” works can tap into the fringe and then break the mainstream open.

Arts use to spur Economic Growth—What might we do as artists to further economic impact of the arts?

We can own it. Richard Florida et al talk about the creative class as something that works for the bourgeois economy, and he’s right, we create energy, attraction, creativity, all of which are things that businesses want to attract in order to exploit and appropriate it. But, when they appropriate it, they waste it, because they use it to help fuel an obsolete economic system. If we don’t let them appropriate us, then our energy and creativity will multiply within our community and we’ll develop new cooperative systems of exchange and collaboration.

With entertainment increasingly being centered on the comfort of home, how do we make community-building art important enough to draw an audience?

Look to the future. If the current trend is for comfort entertainment, the reaction against that will be for live performance (especially with how virtual reproduction will take the economic bottom out of the recording and film industries). Today’s art consumers wanna sit at home, but tomorrow’s consumers are going to want entertainment as an event, an experience. If we keep it up and focus on producing good accessible live performances (or an “experiential element” to our static art) we will take over.

Is there a way to make “elite” arts affordable?

Yes. Do it cheap. Work Towards a Poor Theatre. Stop acting elite. Expect less monetary reward for your work. Live frugally.

Why the division between who can and can’t be an artist?

Because giving certain objects or methods the social status of being “art” allows artists to separate themselves and justify high prices for their art.

What can we do to engage those who fall away?

Demystify the artistic process, stop using art as a status symbol.

Can art be learned?

Sure. Innate talent plays into it as well, but with the broadness of what art can be, almost everyone should be able to find a skill or talent they have and then learn how to develop that skill or talent into “art”.

Do blogs and websites REALLY serve to close the gap?

The internet is a useful way to connect and build communities, especially broader communities, outside a small geographic area (and it’s incredibly useful to expand to a broader area and then come back to your community as someone who’s work has been shown elsewhere) The internet is not so good for distributing your work itself. Computers and email make the business and coordination side of art production possible without the apparatus that was previously necessary, it closes that gap.

How do we dispel the blue collar image?

A “blue collar image” and a “thriving arts destination” are not mutually exclusive. If we continue to develop the arts scene without fretting over how we don’t look like other arts destinations, maybe we’ll develop a unique, and in the end, a more attractive arts destination.

Do you think Milwaukee is a major player in the arts compared with other cities, some much smaller than us?

I don’t know. I haven’t traveled enough. I feel like I can achieve my goals here, it might not be the best place, but I’ve already started here and I’m not ready to give up quite yet.

Can anyone please give me a job?

NO. Get your own damn job.

How do we work to equalize that support or give younger artists and performers a shot at making an impression on the city and communitee?

Work with them. You know… I really am getting too old to still fell like the youngest person in a group of artists like this, and most of the people I work with are younger than me, some drastically younger. How I work with younger people is to take them seriously, treat them as peers, challenge them, and hold them to the same standard I hold ourselves to. Let them fail, tell them they failed and if they failed out of laziness or irresponsibility let them know they’re a disappointment. Then encourage them to learn from it. No patronizing. No special treatment. No kid’s gloves. Serious young artists want serious criticism. They’ll probably hate the critics, but if they're serious about what they’re doing, they’ll do more of it to prove the critic wrong. If they just want to be coddled, then they’re useless anyway.

Is it time the city mandated some space for the performing arts?

We shouldn’t need the city to mandate that kind of space. It’d be nice, and I’d try to take advantage of it, but we should be able to succeed without it. Becoming dependant on state help (or big bourgeois help) is not a good idea for revolutionary artists.

What role does art play beyond the realm of culture-production?

I like Marshall McLuhan’s idea that artists are sort of predicting the future. Also, at this particular moment in history, the next major revolution in the political economy will be the result of the creative class (artists) forming class consciousness, developing new economic relationships and making capitalism obsolete. But, that’s not an inherent quality of art, only the result of these specific social forces.

Is art a hammer or a mirror?

Art is a hammer used to shape reality. A very shiny hammer that reflects as it shapes. Or maybe it’s a mirror that by creating self-awareness is automatically creating change. Whatever. Art describes things and by describing them changes our awareness of them, and our awareness of a thing inherently changes the thing.

How can we get non-artist Wisconsinites more interested in what we do?

Make it cheap and approachable but still high quality.

Can we make art our actual career without quitting our day jobs?

Yes we can. There are at least three ways: 1. Sell out. Make the right kind of marketable art, get yourself appropriated by the bourgeoisie. 2. find a gullible patron who will fund you. 3. live frugal as hell. Sometimes it’s easier to get the right day job (something mindless with little or no supervision) and do as much of your art or arts administration while you’re supposed to be working.

What ways can we best promote each other?

First, you’ve gotta be good enough that I can honestly want to promote you. Cuz I’m only gonna say good things about something that I can honestly say good things about. Otherwise people aren’t going to value my opinion at all.

What makes a play compelling?

The synthesis of words, action, and presence is what makes theatre compelling. What makes a specific play compelling for me is that it engages with me mentally makes me think about issues that I am passionate about, see them from a different perspective and realize new things.

How do you instill respect and love for the arts in kids when they compare it to professional athletes and illustrious role models?

Turn off the television. Instill values such as frugality, integrity, individuality, responsibility and honesty rather than the values that the television and professional sports community instills (materialism, power, celebrity and fame). Kids will follow role models that reflect the values you instill in them. (As far as how to instill those values goes, don’t ask me. That’s one of the reasons I don’t have kids.)

What gives artwork staying power through the centuries?

Artwork’s staying power through the centuries is a product of it’s institutionalization as a status symbol. I’m not interested in this. I’m interested in yesterday’s art, but only as a foundation for today’s art and today’s art as a building block for tomorrow’s art.

Do artists inspire creative problem solving in others?

Not always, but some artists, certainly.

Is this influence necessary for the advancement of civilization?

Yes.

Is the connection between art and society stronger or weaker than a generation ago?

I wasn’t much around a generation ago, but it seems to me that our society and culture is different than it used to be, more complicated. Nowadays we’ve got this global monoculture, but at the same time we’ve got many thriving sustainable subcultures which are less geographically dependant than in the past. I think this reflects society pretty well.

Would you participate in a collective of your peers that would work to support you through financial support and production management in exchange for community service?

You know I will, Mr Richardson. If you can keep it from getting swamped with desperate whiney artists who think they’re entitled to make a living on their art without having to work for it, that is.

Is there interest among Milwaukee artists for interdisciplinary performance?

Theatre is interdisciplinary.

How do you know if you’re a hack who’s just wasting your time or not?

You can’t know. You can only look back and regret the time you wasted. Life is a constant struggle and you can’t predict the future or really know yourself, what your potential is. You can only do your best to plumb whatever potential you might have. If you think you might not be able to hack it, try quitting. If you can give it up, then do so. If you can’t avoid trying again, then you might still have a chance. It’s a question of when and how the priorities in your life shift.

Can poetry be integrated more fully into other arts in MKE?

Poetry is already involved in some playwriting and in songwriting. Beyond that, I doubt it.

How do you break the established system of MKE arts administrators who feel that they are more important than the artist?

Stop needing them. Administer your own art. Find a way to do your art that circumvents the necessity for administrators.
Arts administration can be an art form itself. Some people I know are amazing at organizing people. This is a necessary and beautiful skill. Joseph Beuys says that society is nothing but a giant kinetic sculpture with many authors who’s bodies and activities make up the material of the sculpture. Administrators are moving those people around, if they do it intentionally and creatively, then they might be more important, and more artistic, than the artists they work with.

Should all museums be free to artists?

No. You’d have to legislate the definition of “artist” or just make the museum free to all. “Admission is $15, sir” “No, I get in free, I’m an artist” “oh, can I see your card?” “what?” “your card. Haven’t you registered?” “Yes, but... my application is awaiting approval.” “Sorry sir.” Just because you think something would be nice doesn’t mean it’s politically practical.

I’m interested in the similarities and differences between forms.

One interesting thing about different art forms is how they fit with different economic and political systems. Feudalism worked well with painting and sculpture because it was based on patronage. Capitalism works well with film and recorded music because it’s based on commodification. Capitalism’s replacement will work best with live performance because it’ll be based on experiences.

What is our impact on civilians?

Whose impact on which civilians? Microcosmically, it can be anything from offending them to recruiting them. Macrocosmically, we predict the future and spread understanding of that future.

How do you as one who lives his or her life as an artist, fit into that discussion (of healthcare and govt services)?

I do not currently make a living on my art. I’ve got a slacker job that I abuse for those benefits. If there were other sources for those benefits, that’d put me one step closer to being a “full time artist”.

Why do people feel the need to create art and why do people keep coming?

This one can be answered ten ways depending on the definition of art. If art is an expression of your emotions or state of mind, then people create it cuz they got things to say and people keep coming because they hear something there. If art is a social status symbol, then people create it to set themselves apart as artists, and people keep coming in order to prove themselves cultured or wealthy. If art is a product of a desire for social change, or a looking towards the future, then people create and consume art because they aren’t happy with the current state of things. If art is the product of any human activity (“can one create works which are not works of art?” –M Duchamp), then we create and consume art because we don’t know what else to do.

What about desires for connections with the audience?

My reaction is more based on Paula’s statements at the table (she asked this question). She mentioned audience falling asleep and getting the same milquetoast praise for every show, even from people who slept through the show, in the front row. She’s talking about the quality of the audience, not just the quantity. Having people who engage with the work, who are critical, who stay awake. In my opinion Paula is having these problems because she’s doing Shakespeare.
Not that there’s something inherently wrong with Shakespeare (I do find it dull as fuck, but that’s just me) the problem with doing Shakespeare is that it attracts a deadly disengaged audience. People who are there for status and obligation, not for art. See Peter Brook, or this discussion: http://rwinsome.blogspot.com/2007/09/debate-is-shakespheare-deadly.html.
Also, we aren’t going to have an engaged audience until we have engaged, critical critics. We aren’t going to have engaged critics until certain theatre producers grow a thicker skin, or at least stop trying to censor their critics. See this diatribe for more: http://rwinsome.blogspot.com/2007/09/on-criticism-community-support-and.html

Do the numerous theatre companies compete against each other, or create more of a theatre going audience?

It depends on the company. Many companies are bickering over the same slice of pie, and it’s a stale, old moldy pie at that. Other companies are reaching out to new audiences and bringing non theatre people in.

Art cliques in MKE, why not cross fertilization?

As someone who works in an inherently collaborative art form, I’m constantly encountering and working with new people. We give all kinds of people a chance, especially with the shows I’ve done with Pink Banana (and now that John Manno has handed Pink Banana over to us, we’ll do more of that) We reach out to new groups and across disciplines whenever we can. There’s tension and hesitation though, because many of the people I’ve encountered are not people that I can work well with. Different people can have radically different approaches to art on so many different levels. Business practices, emotional needs, aesthetic qualifications, ethics, communication methods are all so different, especially among artists. We’re people who make expressing things in unique ways a major part of our lives, so it’s natural that we lack a common language.
Cliques form because people find other people who they can work with and trust. The risk that any new person might turn out to be another whiney, irresponsible, emotionally unstable procrastinator (as far too many artists are) is a disincentive to starting something with them, especially if they give that kind of first impression.