Modern capitalist society is collapsing, I don’t think that’s radical to say. The COVID pandemic over the past year has shown how poorly this system can adapt to a threat to economic growth. I won’t bother detailing all the signs of collapse really, everyone can see them and is talking about them now. On Reddit, r/collapse has seen incredible growth over the past year. Everyone is obsessed with talking about it and how everyone is doomed, but not really with what to do or what comes after. Perhaps because they literally cannot imagine anything coming after capitalism other than some Mad Max looking shitshow. I’m a bit hopeful though, especially with modern technology.
Never before has a society/state/empire gone through catastrophic change with the technology of today. Giant platforms like Facebook can tweak their algorithms to present people with an alternate sense of reality leading to hate and fear, destroying communities and making people aggressive. There is so much untapped technology that is not profitable but could be useful for communities as the current system breaks down. Ignoring the ad supported social media giants, technology could be used to bring unprecedented local democracy and forum spaces in communities. The organizational potential is currently used by businesses, but could be used in amazing ways for helping individuals and communities share resources in a non-exploitative manner. Mesh networking can decentralize internet connectivity, preventing a large centralized entity from shutting down communications and also helping people coordinate during a disaster that would otherwise take down communication infrastructure.
Currently most communication technology is commodified, which is a massive problem that must be dealt with, but can be dealt with. Smartphones are a perfect example. The design philosophy centers around permanent production. Life-limited parts are made hard to replace and by the time you need to replace a battery you might as well buy the new one, right? That old one is getting kinda scratched up anyways, and they used a new design! Now of course you don’t have to, but because of all the new models you will only get software updates for a few more years and then you’ll need to get a new one for apps to update since you have no open source alternative. We could build them better though. I’m not saying we don’t make phones, I’m just saying we don’t bother producing so many, just like cars and other commodified things. We can design things to last longer and be repairable so we don’t have to produce as many things. We can then focus more on making sure what is produced is done in a non-exploitative manner for workers, communities, and the environment. Kind of needs a whole new system rather than the current model of permanent growth, but it’s already clear what permanent growth does to society and the natural world around us.
I live near some big car factories and used to work in one of them. Over the past year production has slowed to a snails pace because of supply disruptions. Even when COVID was not spreading terribly in this rural area production was only running at 20%-30% capacity due to parts shortages from other places. Despite record demand for new cars, the workers on the lines at these factories are often only getting 15-20 hours a week. This isn’t going to get better either; we have to build new systems that are not reliant on the wage system for people to have access to the basic necessities of life such as shelter, food, and security.
Even staring at the societal collapse ahead a better world is possible. It’s possible to have modern technology still with degrowth, we simply have to disconnect from the permanent cycle of production for production’s sake. We will always need to build things, develop new technologies, and work on our communities, but especially with modern technology we can do so in an ecological manner that is better for everyone and the world. We can achieve a comfortable living with what has been produced and do not need to continue the cycle of permanent growth. It is unsustainable, one way or another we will have to build a new system.
These are all just my jumbled thoughts, and I’m sure over time they will change and I can hopefully apply them more to my community over time and share my experiences. If you want to bug me about my thoughts, you can find me on Twitter as Tactinerd or in the Communalism discord. Here’s some random resources in no particular order I think are pretty good for exploring more ideas.
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