Abolition & Revolution

https://kolektiva.media/w/kbQR3RDyuU5CeECaJ5uuTE

RE: https://toot.cafe/@baldur/116307441029006075

This is a good article about Cory Doctorow's weird and self-serving misunderstanding of Audre Lord's famous observation about the master's tools. The author explains that Doctorow takes the line out of context and then tells us that his example of antitrust law "would be a defensible claim if that was the argument Audre Lorde was making in the first place."

In other words she seems to agree with Doctorow that antitrust law is an example of the master's tools dismantling the master's house, or at least not to completely dismiss this claim. But even though Lorde wasn't talking about this kind of tool her analysis still holds, even for antitrust law and other regulatory structures that superficially seem to limit capitalist exploitation.

One of capitalism:s biggest maintenance problems is that their victims inevitably realize what's being done to them and rebel. The ruling classes inevitably respond by moving things around so that the exploitation can continue but in more hidden ways. For instance Anglo-American chattel slavery was not only horrific but obviously visibly horrific. Everyone could see the horror. There was a huge abolitionist movement in Britain and ongoing slave rebellions, including the consequential 1831 Baptist War, which apparently involved around 60K of the 300K enslaved people in Jamaica.[1] Just two years later the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 took effect.[2] The British government didn't abolish slavery to protect slaves from exploitation but to protect capitalism from short-sighted capitalists who didn't recognize the peril their whole project was in due to popular resistance. The Brits offshored slavery's contributions to their economy to the American south, where it was still viable, at least for a while.

If the very abolition of slavery didn't dismantle the master's house there's no reason to expect that breaking up a monopoly or two is going to destroy capitalism. The ruling class doesn't create laws they can't work around. They wait till popular resistance threatens their exploitative project and then pass laws that silence the resistance but don't actually solve the problem. The Pure Food and Drug Act, all of FDR's social welfare measures, etc. These are not tools with which the master's house can be dismantled. They're tools our masters use to strengthen their house's foundations.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baptist_War

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_Abolition_Act_1833

#AudreLorde #CoryDoctorow #TheMastersTools #Slavery #Abolition #AntitrustLaw #Capitalism

25 MAR 1807 | Slave Trade Act passed | United Kingdom

#OnThisDay #History #PoliticalHistory #UnitedKingdom #Abolition

Today in Labor History March 23, 1871: Far left workers proclaimed communes in Lyon and Marseilles. The Paris Commune began March 18. Workers, including Cluseret and Mikhail Bakunin and other anarchists and left socialists of the International Workingmen’s Association, had tried to create a commune in Lyon in 1870, as well. Prior to this, Cluseret fought the bourgeois moderates during the 1848 Paris uprising. And in 1860, he joined Garabaldi in his fight for Italian independence. In 1860, when William Sewell made a plea for European generals, he joined Union army with letters of support from Garibaldi, serving as a colonel, commanding troops in Shenandoah Valley. He eventually rose to the rank of general, but eventually quit when he was accused of insubordination for complaining about the abuse of civilians by Union troops. After that, he joined the Irish Republican cause, managing to escape a death sentence by the British. During the Paris Commune, Cluseret served as Minister of War. However, when he refused to arrest Monsignior Darboy, Archbishop of Paris, he was arrested for collusion with the enemy.

Cluseret once said, “the U.S. presents that strange anomaly of enslaved labor in a free nation. Politically free, the worker is socially the capitalists’ serf.”

Marx called him an opportunist and an overambitious babbler.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #civilwar #paris #lyon #Marseille #commune #bakunin #anarchism #cluseret #workers #marx #slavery #Abolition #independence

Today in Labor History March 22, 1794: President Washington signed the Slave Trade Act, which banned U.S. ships and citizens from engaging in the international slave trade. However, Americans continued to import and export slaves illegally, and other countries could still legally import slaves into the U.S. until 1807. A slave trader named John Brown, founder of Brown University, was the first person tried and acquitted under the Slave Trade Act. But the government still confiscated his ship. He was later elected to Congress.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #slavery #brownuniversity #racism #abolition #washington #congress #BlackMastodon

I have been so excited to announce this!

You're invited to a Conflict circle facilitation workshop by @genopretkbh ❤️‍🔥

#Aarhus let's study and practice restorative and transformative justice 🌿

Event info: https://dukop.dk/9563/

#RestorativeJustice #Abolition #TransformativeJustice #GenoprettendeRetfærdighed #MellemfolkeligtSamvirkeAarhus