27.03.2015 Views

KTub8

KTub8

KTub8

SHOW MORE
SHOW LESS

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.

The Social Laboratory<br />

an organizational method by which a large collection of<br />

small, violent, superempowered groups can work together to<br />

take on much larger foes (usually hierarchies). [...] It enables:<br />

high rates of innovation, increased survivability among the<br />

participant groups, and more frequent attacks and an ability<br />

to swarm targets. 38<br />

The mutual benefits here are improved knowledge about<br />

more efficient ways to kill one’s adversaries.<br />

So while not all forms of co-operation need to<br />

beneficial to society at large, the structural experience<br />

of co-operation is a key element in the political project<br />

of strengthening social solidarity. This solidarity is<br />

more than an empty slogan, it is grounded in concrete,<br />

everyday experiences, renewed through collective action<br />

and guided by the conviction that one’s own personal<br />

goals and aspirations cannot be achieved against others,<br />

but with and through them. Such solidarity, embedded<br />

in new narratives and creating new shared horizons<br />

for action, can provide the basis for novel cultural,<br />

economic and political forms. It isn’t restricted to the<br />

internet. The same dynamic can help to reevaluate<br />

very old forms of organisation based on commons that<br />

existed in parallel to the dominant modes of prices and<br />

commands, since pre-modern times, but were often<br />

regarded simply as leftovers, as areas where modernity<br />

never bothered to show up, or simply ignored by the<br />

mainstream theories because they did not fit into any of<br />

the dominant theortical narratives centring around the<br />

capitalism/socialism divide. Commons are not capitalist,<br />

but also not anti-capitalist. They are, first and foremost,<br />

a-capitalist. A tenuous position.<br />

30

Hooray! Your file is uploaded and ready to be published.

Saved successfully!

Ooh no, something went wrong!