There is no alternative: THE FUTURE IS SELF-ORGANISED
Part 1
As workers in the cultural field we
offer the following contribution to the debate on the impact of
neoliberalism on institutional relations:
- Cultural and educational institutions as
they appear today are nothing more than legal and administrative organs
of the dominant system. As with all institutions, they live in and
through us; we participate in their structures and programmes,
internalise their values, transmit their ideologies and act as their
audience/public/social body.
- Our view: these institutions may
present themselves to us as socially accepted bodies, as somehow
representative of the society we live in, but they are nothing more
than dysfunctional relics of the bourgeois project. Once upon a time,
they were charged with the role of promoting democracy, breathing life
into the myth that institutions are built on an exchange between free,
equal and committed citizens. Not only have they failed in this task,
but within the context of neoliberalism, have become even more obscure,
more unreliable and more exclusive.
- The state and its institutional bodies
now share aims and objectives so closely intertwined with corporate and
neoliberal agendas that they have been rendered indivisible. This
intensification and expansion of free market ideology into all aspects
of our lives has been accompanied by a systematic dismantling of all
forms of social organisation and imagination antithetical to the
demands of capitalism.
- As part of this process it’s clear
that many institutions and their newly installed managerial elites are
now looking for escape routes out of their inevitable demise and that,
at this juncture, this moment of crisis, they’re looking at
'alternative' structures and what's left of the Left to model their
horizons, sanction their role in society and reanimate their tired
relations. Which of course we despise!
In their scramble for
survival, cultural and educational institutions have shown how easily
they can betray one set of values in favour of another and that's why
our task now is to demand and adhere to the foundational and social
principles they have jettisoned, by which we mean: transparency,
accountability, equality and open participation.
- By transparency we mean an opening up of
the administrative and financial functions/decision making processes to
public scrutiny. By accountability we mean that these functions and
processes are clearly presented, monitored and that they can in turn,
be measured and contested by 'participants' at any time. Equality and
open participation is exactly what it says - that men and women of all
nationalities, race, colour and social status can participate in any of
these processes at any time.
- Institutions as they appear today,
locked in a confused space between public and private, baying to the
demands of neoliberal hype with their new management strucures, are not
in a position to negotiate the principles of transparency,
accountability and equality, let alone implement them. We realise that
responding to these demands might extend and/or guarantee institutions'
survival but, thankfully, their deeply ingrained practices prevent them
from even entertaining the idea on a serious level.
- In our capacity as workers with a
political commitment to self-organisation we feel that any further
critical contribution to institutional programmes will further
reinforce the relations that keep these obsolete structures in place.
We are fully aware that ‘our’ critiques, alternatives and forms of
organisation are not just factored into institutional structures but
increasingly utilised to legitimise their existence.
- The relationship between corporations,
the state and its institutions is now so unbearable that we see no
space for negotiation – we offer no contribution, no critique, no
pathway to reform, no way in or out. We choose to define ourselves in
relation to the social forms that we participate in and not the leaden
institutional programmes laid out before us - our deregulation is
determined by social, not market relations. There is no need for us to
storm the Winter Palace, because most institutions are melting away in
the heat of global capital anyway. We will provide no alternative. So
let go!
The only question that remains is how to get rid of the carcass and deal with the stench:
- We are not interested in their so-called
assets; their personnel, buildings, archives, programmes, shops, clubs,
bars, facilities and spaces will all end up at the pawnbroker anyway...
- All we need is their cash in order to
pay our way out of capitalism and take this opportunity to make clear
our intention to supervise and mediate our own social capital,
knowledge and networks.
- As a first step we suggest an
immediate redistribution of their funds to already existing,
self-organised bodies with a clear commitment to workers’ and
immigrants’ rights, social (anti-racist, anti-sexist, anti-homophobic)
struggle and representation.
There is no alternative! The future is self-organised.
- In the early 1970’s corporate analysts
developed a strategy aimed at reducing uncertainty called ‘there is no
alternative’ (TINA). Somewhat ironically we now find ourselves in
agreement, but this time round we’re the scenario planners and
executors of our own future though we are, if nothing else, the very
embodiment of uncertainty.
- In the absence of clearly stated
opposition to the neoliberal system, most forms of collective and
collaborative practice can be read as ‘self-enterprise’. By which we
mean, groupings or clusters of individuals set up to feed into the
corporate controlled markets, take their seats at the table, cater to
and promote the dominant ideology.
- Self-organisation should not be
confused with self-enterprise or self-help, it is not an alternative or
conduit into the market. It isn’t a label, logo, brand or flag under
which to sail in the waters of neoliberalism (even as a pirate ship as
suggested by MTV)! It has no relationship to entrepreneurship or bogus
‘career collectives’.
- In our view self-organisation is a
byword for the productive energy of those who have nothing left to
lose. It offers up a space for a radical re-politicisation of social
relations – the first tentative steps towards realisable freedoms.
Self-organisation is:
- Something which predates representational
institutions. To be more precise: institutions are built on (and often
paralyse) the predicates and social forms generated by
self-organisation.
- Mutually reinforcing, self-valorising,
self-empowering, self-historicising and, as a result, not compatible
with fixed institutional structures.
- A social and productive force, a
process of becoming which, like capitalism, can be both flexible and
opaque – therefore more than agile enough to tackle (or circumvent) it.
- A social process of communication and
commonality based on exchange; sharing of similar problems, knowledge
and available resources.
- A fluid, temporal set of negotiations and social relations which can be emancipatory - a process of empowerment.
- Something which situates itself in opposition to existing, repressive forms of organisation and concentrations of power.
- Always challenging power both inside the
organisation and outside the organisation; this produces a society of
resonance and conflict, but not based on fake dualities as at present.
- An organisation of deregulated selves. It is at its core a non-identity.
- A tool that doesn’t require a cohesive
identity or voice to enter into negotiation with others. It may reside
within social forms but doesn’t need take on an identifiable social
form itself.
- Contagious and inclusive, it disseminates and multiplies.
- The only way to relate to
self-organisation is to take part, self-organise, connect with other
self-organising initiatives and challenge the legitimacy of
institutional representation.
We put a lid on the bourgeois
project, the national museums will be be stored in their very own
archive, the Institutes of Contemporay Art will be handed over to the
artists unions, the Universities and Academies will be handed over to
the students, Siemens and all the other global players will be handed
over to their workers. The state now acts as an administrative unit -
just as neoliberalism has suggested it - but with mechanisms of
control, transparency accountability and equal rights for all.
END
Stephan Dillemuth in Munich, Anthony Davies in London and Jakob Jakobsen
in Copenhagen June 12, 2005
Disclaimer:
This text can be freely distributed and printed in non-commercial, no- money
contexts without the permission of the authors.
It was originally conceived as a pamphlet with the
aim of disrupting the so-called critical paths and careers being carved out
by those working the base structure of the political-art fields. We're aware
of contradictions, limits and problems with this text and invite all to measure
the content in direct relation to the context in which it may appear. In fact,
it has come as no surprise to us that its dodgy legitimising potential has
been most keenly exploited by those it originally set out to challenge.
Having let it fly we now invite you, the reader,
to consider why it's in this publication/exhibition, whose interests it serves
and the power relations it helps to maintain.