No state crackdown—compeerists engage the state while laying the groundwork for its eventual overthrow

Hannes, Professor of Geography at the University of West Georgia. “Compeerists of the World Unite!” From Capital to Commons: Exploring the Promise of a World Beyond Capitalism. University of Bristol. Pp 185-189. /LJS

Regarding the prefigurative level, we would do well to remind ourselves that compeerism is fundamentally grounded in a (r)evolutionary vision where the economy is run by and for the people (not capital or the state), hence cementing the bottom-up impetus of the compeerist outlook. As such, the progression of compeerism, if it happens at all, will be propelled in fits and starts by the impactful events and innovative economic/social experiments unfolding locally as lines of flight (Dyer-Witheford, 2012; Bauwens and Gerhardt, 2020; Wright, 2021). These lines of flight are also immensely important in that they represent what Deleuze and Guattari (1987) refer to as ‘micropolitics’, which, by being ‘molecular’ enactments of a desired future to come (Holloway’s ‘doing’), foster an ethos of ‘becoming-revolutionary’ (Reyes, 2020). The becoming-revolutionary quality here is essential, as it serves not only as a force that undermines capital, but also as an inoculation against capital’s coopting powers. In addition to these isolated lines of flight, cracks, or micropolitics, compeerism also insists on a trans-local, meso-level political activism centred on achieving a greater solidarity among commoners themselves. We have referred to this throughout the book as various instantiations of boundary commoning, and these, following compeerism’s strategic outlook, would need to see a massive expansion via a blossoming of commoner consciousness and a subsequent movement of movements. One of the key aims of boundary commoning is to cohere the lines of flight into a more concerted force to deal directly with capital. These efforts often have a primarily economic impetus, such as the sharing of resources and information, yet when these also include a push to establish a peer-property regime that intentionally excludes capitalist actors, the prospect of contestation and, hence, politics is not far off. This reality, then, leads to a secondary purpose behind boundary commoning, which is the combining of commons-based interests into organized groupings, such as guilds or cooperative alliances. Here the aim is much more directly political as these entities seek to leverage the power of commoners to contend with contextual challenges, which, in the end, will need to be pursued via the existing governance/government arrangements in place. Indeed, the acknowledgment of the power that state-based assemblages/ apparatuses have over compeerists ability to realize their goals leads directly to the embrace of ‘molar’ forms of political engagement, or macropolitics (Deleuze and Guattari, 1987). This macro-level of activism broadly denotes those efforts that directly seek to interact with and ultimately influence and shape government. It should be noted that beyond the P2P approach, this embrace of macropolitics as a supplement to the micro has also become adopted in some autonomist literature, from the ‘harm reduction’ espoused by the Midnight Notes Collective (2009) to the law-focused pressurization on the state backed in the later work by Hardt and Negri (2012). More specifically, and following Kioupkiolis (2020b, p 178), the ‘alternative politics’ involved in such a macro focus would need to orchestrate ‘broad-based political alliances which aggregate their forces, coordinate their action around a common political plan and a new collective identity, and make a concerted effort to reshuffle the decks of power so as to restructure dominant social relations’. In this sense the embrace of the macropolitical is a clear rejection of the assertion that any engagement with the state, or other reified assemblages/ apparatuses, inevitably end up bolstering the very forces that are being targeted for change, as per Holloway (2010). Instead, compeerism’s position holds that any such complicity can be overcome if the ethos of ‘becoming-revolutionary’ manages to also infuse the molar outlook of the movement of movements, meaning that the pursuit of state concessions (such as labour unions demanding a higher minimum wage) are not seen as ends in themselves (Merriman, 2018; Gerhardt, 2019). Rather, such demands must be consciously embraced as means to a much larger end, namely the establishment of a post-capitalist, compeerist society (Firat, 2020). The perceived need to engage the state in this tactical way aligns well with Slavoj Žižek’s provocative argument that refusing such engagement is ultimately a form of capitulation. In a controversial piece entitled ‘Resistance is Surrender’, Žižek (2007) takes to task the increasingly submissive and resigned attitudes he perceives on the political left. His point is that resistance to capitalism and the state has devolved into a retreat, where the political-economic structures are seen as essentially unassailable, while at the same time viewing engagement with the state as inevitably leading to cooptation. With such a starting point, Žižek argues, we end up with the left making lofty moral arguments that have no chance of actually penetrating state power. Those in charge can thus point to the peaceful, disengaged, and noble dissent on the left as an indication that the system is working, only to proceed unhindered in pursuing devastating economic and geopolitical interests. For Žižek this arrangement is a cynical and destructive win-win, where the dissenters save their souls while the state (and the capital interests it represents) maintains its unchecked power. Žižek (2007, np) goes on to argue that if you believe a different world is truly possible, as compeerism does, then the thing to do is to actually fight for this world, not by making ‘“infinite” demands we know those in power cannot fulfill’ but rather ‘to bombard those in power with strategically well-selected, precise, finite demands’, as these cannot be so easily dismissed. This is what we can call a ‘hit-andrun’ tactic, where the state (and its undergirding assemblages/apparatuses) is recognized as a critical fulcrum of power relevant to the prospects of the commons-based subeconomy. At the same time, this engagement is also understood within a deeper ‘becoming-revolutionary’ stance, committed to the eventual dissolution of the state’s current arrangement with capital. It is clear from Žižek’s comments that his focus was primarily on the national level of politics. Yet, before addressing hit-and-run tactics at this scale, we must acknowledge that compeerists would be inclined, first and foremost, to secure support and buy in on the local level, where ‘the state’ is often considerably more receptive and penetrable. Such ‘municipal activism’ is what Bookchin ultimately called for as the most appropriate and effective form of anarchist political action (Bookchin and Vanek, 2001). P2P scholars have similarly homed in on the importance of localized engagement, for instance, calling for the formation of ‘assemblies of the commons’ where commoners can meet with the aim of supporting locally governed commons, and a ‘chamber of the commons’ that can lobby for commons-friendly municipal policies (Bauwens et al, 2019). Indeed, such municipal activism is already crystallizing the world over as urban-centred commons movements are increasingly framing their actions as a strategy to ‘change the world one city at a time’ (Utratel and Troncoso, 2017, np). An encouraging sign of the potential in such an approach is the considerable expansion of the urban commons and the growing number of pro-commons municipal governments (Thompson, 2020; Vesco, 2020; Zechner, 2020). The Bologna Regulation for the Care and Regeneration of the Urban Commons is an oft-cited example that exemplifies this trend. David Bollier (2015, np) explains this project as follows: Instead of seeing the city simply as an inventory of resources to be administered by politicians and bureaucratic experts, the Bologna Regulation sees the city’s residents as resourceful, imaginative agents in their own right. Citizen initiative and collaboration are regarded as under-leveraged energies that – with suitable government assistance – can be recognized and given space to work. Government is re-imagined as hosting infrastructure for countless self-organized commons. In this way over 90 collaborative agreements have been met in Bologna between citizens and the local government, focusing on everything from childcare to urban agriculture. Nevertheless, the struggle to expand the commons along compeerist lines will inevitably also push up against larger scaled assemblages/apparatuses, which demand more macro-level hit-and-run efforts. To be effective, however, any such engagements with the national state must be well organized and ultimately well-funded. Bauwens and his collaborators, as part of a growing awareness within P2P approaches for the need to engage government, make a compelling case for the commons-based subeconomy to actively support a ‘counter-power’ to the existing political order at various scales (Bauwens et al, 2019). There are numerous ways this counter-power could be pursued, including through lobbying campaigns, infiltrating political parties, running independent candidates, establishing commons-oriented parties (along the lines of the Pirate Party or a more intentionally counter capitalist version of the British Co-operative Party), and, not least, creating policy-oriented think tanks and relevant academic fields of study to shape and popularize compeerist-oriented discourses (O’Neil and Broca, 2021). In a moment, we will turn to how a compeerist counter-power could be put to use to directly pressure and influence government. Yet, the latter point just noted regarding the broader shaping of discourse, and hence public opinion, is worth briefly homing in on. While discourse alone cannot lead to systemic change, it nonetheless makes up a critical component of the overarching superstructural hegemony, or counter-hegemony, that undergirds or challenges any particular political-economic arrangement (Gramsci, 2011). As such, the role of discourse in forming attitudes and manipulating policy decisions should not be underestimated. Indeed, the rise of neoliberalism, at least in terms of the needed execution of its defence, has been linked precisely to the methodical building up of free-market philosophies and narratives emanating from economics departments and a slew of think tanks created precisely for this purpose (Harvey, 2006; Plehwe 2017). It stands to reason that for a compeerist trajectory to unfold, a similar infrastructure would also be needed – the creation of the P2P Foundation is certainly a promising start, but much more would be needed. As an example of a compeerist-aligned discourse that could have far-reaching impact, we can point to the efforts linked to challenging and rethinking the taken-for-granted use of economic indicators (such as GDP, productivity, unemployment) as the primary gauge of a nation’s accomplishments, self-worth, and most critically, overall wellbeing. Making the limits and possible alternatives to these econocentric measures a real topic of debate could prove to be a potent, self-reflective exercise for individuals and society, who may end up demanding the use of more holistic and pertinent indices covering such things as happiness, health, and sustainability (Jackson, 2017). If such non-capitalist indicators were to become fundamentally embedded in the strategic mission and vision of the state, then the capital-oriented hardwiring within its various departments would likely be, at least partially, short-circuited.