Thesis Chapters by Dr Alexander Waters
Sample chapter of doctoral thesis - conceptual and theoretical framework, 2020
The Global Financial Crisis of 2008 ushered neoliberal capitalism into a prolonged hegemonic cris... more The Global Financial Crisis of 2008 ushered neoliberal capitalism into a prolonged hegemonic crisis. From Brexit, to Trump, from record inequality, to climate politics, the elites of the world-system are increasingly divided on what is to be done. A generalised crisis of legitimacy is thus affecting the world-system, whereby the people as a subject no longer believe as they once did and are no longer capable of acting accordingly. The Coronavirus Crash of 2020 heightened these contradictions dramatically, leading many to begin questioning whether neoliberalism will survive this latest crisis and what will replace it? Historical equivalents of such political-economic transitions suggest that a new social order will be built out of the ashes of the old. But if this is the case, why has a transition to a more progressive next system not occurred already? An eruption of mass movements has been observed globally since the financial crisis of 2008, yet after a month or a year, we hear little about what consequences these exhortations for popular sovereignty actualised. It is precisely within this space – between the several years of aftermath of a social movement’s major mobilisations and political-economic transition – that this thesis seeks to make an original contribution to knowledge. The central research question animating this thesis is how have the consequences attributable to three left-populist movements in the wake of their major mobilisations in 2015-2017 shaped the emergent transition to what comes after neoliberalism and what strategy for the institutionalisation of their goals has been the most effective over the medium term? In response, my overall argument is that, as a result of both the external structural barriers and internal collective-agential choices facing the three movements, the Climate Justice Movement in Australia, the Podemos Movement-Party in Spain and the Black Lives Matter Movement in the US, they have each struggled to guide the transition beyond neoliberalism in the direction of a more democratic, just, and sustainable system. I identify the three movement’s strategies, respectively, as co-optive institutionalisation (similar to NGO-isation), disruptive institutionalisation (sometimes referred to in the literature as ‘from protest to politics’) and disruptive non-institutionalisation (effectively indefinite protest and a refusal to develop into any formal organisation over time). Instead of a single revolutionary moment of rupture, the most likely transition, which I argue we have begun living through with the Coronavirus Crash of 2020, is a slow decay from the neoliberal model of capitalism into ‘techno-feudalism’. I argue that this represents a new mode of production which can summarily be defined as a return to some characteristics of pre-capitalist class society, and the instrumentalisation of technology for social control. As Wolfgang Streeck’s How Will Capitalism End? noted (2016, p. 28 drawing on Winters 2011) present levels of wealth inequality between the richest 400 Americans and the rest of the American population are comparable to that seen at the height of the Roman empire between a senator and a slave. The emergence of techno-feudalism can be observed in a new rentier-based economy dominated by a handful of platform economy corporations wherein the rapid flows of intangible capital and immaterial labour are determined by oligarchs who control – not so much the physical infrastructure of mines, factories and shops as the dominant class did under capitalism – but rather the crucial vectors of information exchange which figures such as Jeff Bezos of Amazon and Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook have used to become among the wealthiest and influential human beings in history. Techno-feudalism is distinct from capitalism in that it features a new class structure of Techno-Rentier Oligarchs who own the giant platform corporations and a popular class which lives under the dictatorship of the algorithm who have been made increasingly precarious by automation and global labour market competition which I call the Techno-Precariat Commoners. Rather than at the point of production only, as per class struggle under industrial capitalism, under techno-feudalism the elite seeks to everywhere create regimes of New Enclosure by controlling, monopolising, privatising and then militarising all societal resources from public space to creative media shared over the internet. New state functions render the social contract of liberal democratic capitalism void since political and economic power is increasingly concentrated in the hands of this oligarchy and the state repressive apparatus (policing, prisons, intelligence agencies and so on) grows more sophisticated by the year. Cast against this dystopian spectre of technology for social control, the popular class of the Techno-Precariat Commoners employ the social movement strategy of commoning to create New Commons systems of open access and democratically negotiated management. Remunicipalisation movements provide a model for reversing the privatisation of city-scale utilities like water, electricity, gas, public transport and other services. The thesis is shaped by a post-Marxist theoretical framework driven by the ideas of Paolo Gerbaudo, Laurence Cox, Guy Standing, Chantal Mouffe, Nick Srnicek, and Andre Gorz. Within a political economy framework influenced by their ideas, the consequences of the three movements are analysed in relation to mass culture, institutions and policy. Having established that these movements are confronted with a new form of political economy in techno-feudalism, I argue that this is the meta-reason it is so difficult for social movements to have a major impact on society today. Techno-feudalism has created a steeper terrain of struggle in which political opportunity structural barriers have made pursuing the political goals of left-populist movements objectively more difficult than under conditions of neoliberalism, social democracy or early capitalist expansion. Mass surveillance, the capacity for hyper-targeted repression and spectacular algorithmic forms of distraction are new challenges to which social movements will have to adapt and overcome. This does not amount to a call for defeatism. History is simultaneously moving forwards technologically while at the same time it is being driven backwards politically. Technology can provide the illusion that progress happens by default. But when progressive social movements and parties retreat, history does not move forward, nor does it stand still, patiently waiting. Regressive movements, parties and oligarchs have their own visions for what kind of system should replace neoliberal capitalism and it is this revanchist revolutionary subject that has stepped in to fill the void.
Honours thesis submitted in partial completion of a graduate degree at RMIT University.
Papers by Dr Alexander Waters
Like other ephemeral waves of protest against austerity which erupted in 2011, the Spanish 15M mo... more Like other ephemeral waves of protest against austerity which erupted in 2011, the Spanish 15M movement seemed to disperse, without attempting to impact the institutions of the “regime of 1978”. In an inventive iteration of populism, and an optimistic faith in prefigurative experimentalism as strategy, the movement actively resisted engagement with what it deemed part of the tainted old regime. Reluctance to accept support from trade unions was illustrative of this milieu. The founding of the Podemos party in March 2014 heralded a shrewd manoeuvre by a clique of Gramscian intelligentsia, who seeing a political opening created by popular disaffection with the old parties sought to unite social democrats, liberals, communists and anarchists. This paper explores what have been the consequences of the Podemos movement-party; defined in terms of impact on policy, institutions and culture. Drawing on original in-depth interview data with nine militant activists in the aftermath of the December 2015 election, the findings suggest that Podemos’ greatest impact was in terms of culture through popularising the idea of the next stage of the country’s democratisation while the key weakness leading to poorer than expected election results has been the disempowerment of local activist ‘circles’. To overcome this, Podemos’ mass membership of over 430,000 must cohere and assert sovereignty over the liquidationism of the central leadership. Only then could the 15M’s more radical ideas of a universal basic income, participatory governance structures and cancelling the national debt be brought back into the realm of possibility.
Key words: Podemos, radical democracy, populism, movement-party and institutionalisation.
This is a draft paper Ben Debney and I submitted to the Australian Sociological Association for t... more This is a draft paper Ben Debney and I submitted to the Australian Sociological Association for the annual conference to be held in Melbourne in December 2016.
Abstract:
When we ask ‘what makes a liveable city?’ - it is pertinent to focus on whether the entire popular class’s basic needs (for housing, food, education, healthcare and so on) are being met. In the late-capitalist city (whether Melbourne or Paris) these needs are decreasingly being met due to the financial stress imposed by decades of neoliberal austerity. Building on Lazzarato’s theory of ‘Indebted Man’ and Clover’s notion of the unending riot, we argue that recent waves of social movement mobilisations proffer an incipient process of politicisation beyond the traditional confines of militant activism. The Climate Justice Movement is used as an example. While it was unable to achieve its desired agreement at the UN COP21 negotiations in December 2015, it had small but significant consequences, and forms one of several divisions in the emerging counter-hegemonic bloc preparing for “what comes after neoliberalism”. In this sense it can be viewed as part of the global struggle to create cities that are liveable for everyone, and not merely the Economist’s chief constituency of wealthy expatriate businessmen.
Keywords: militarisation, liveable, Climate Justice Movement, divestment, neoliberalism.
Conference Presentations by Dr Alexander Waters
Neoliberalism is in a hegemonic crisis. In the political-economic conditions since the global fin... more Neoliberalism is in a hegemonic crisis. In the political-economic conditions since the global financial crisis of 2008, it has lost much of its ideological capacity for subject mobilisation. This in turn has made its innate coercive, disciplinary and panoptic tendencies more apparent to the popular classes, sparking populist rebellions from both the left and right. Davidson (2016) coined the term “Crisis Neoliberalism” to demarcate this era. I feel that this marks a larger break and prefer the term New Feudalism to emphasise that in the wake of the great transformation global society saw from roughly 1973-2008, we are transitioning out of liberal democratic capitalist order and into a mode of production which is qualitatively new. More on that later. Three global crises: climate change, austerity and militarised, racialized policing are identified as policy pressure points; areas in which the regime is sensitive and vulnerable to activism. Drawing on a comparative sociology approach this thesis explores what have been the consequences of three global, populist, networked social movements in order to understand how their activism has shaped the decline of Neoliberalism in relation to these three global crises, and influenced the emergent potential of a more participatory-democratic system of global governance which I refer to as New Global Democracy. The three social movements case studies are the Climate Justice Movement, the Podemos Movement-Party and the Black Lives Matter Movement. For each of the case studies, a local group in one city was selected based on its role as an important hub in the movement’s global network. The three cities are Melbourne, Barcelona and Oakland, in the above respective order. The thesis involves a qualitative methodology of in-depth interviews with activists, participant observation of protest mobilisations and a subsequent critical content analysis of the social media and mass media coverage of the mobilisations. Although they each face a different set of political opportunity structures, each of the movements has had consequences on society at the level of culture, institutions and policy which this thesis seeks to explore. For example, the Climate Justice Movement, while being the victim of circumstance with the ‘state of emergency’ ban on protests due to terror attacks in Paris in the lead-up to COP21 which severely curtailed the movement’s capacity to exert popular pressure during the summit, has impacted on culture through its development and evolution of South-North activist solidarity discourses and practices from the Global Justice Movement of the previous decade. Meanwhile the Podemos-Movement Party has impacted on Spanish institutions such as the conservative Popular Party and the traditional social democratic PSOE party by branding the duumvirate the ‘corrupt regime of 1978’. Through the election results (becoming the third major party in Spain with 21% of the primary vote), the PMP has thoroughly disrupted the state of affairs which had existed prior, and sent shockwaves across the Eurozone about the potential for new parties aimed at creating a participatory democratic governance in other states affected by austerity and local social movements against it. Finally, the Black Lives Matter Movement has dramatically impacted on culture through shining a relentless spotlight on police brutality, remaining in the mass media and popular culture evident on social media for over three years. In the process it has mainstreamed a previously ‘radical’ emancipatory discourse of Black Liberation, and sparked a policy debate about the need to re-evaluate how society should manage inequality through policy means other than mass incarceration and militarized policing.
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Thesis Chapters by Dr Alexander Waters
Papers by Dr Alexander Waters
Key words: Podemos, radical democracy, populism, movement-party and institutionalisation.
Abstract:
When we ask ‘what makes a liveable city?’ - it is pertinent to focus on whether the entire popular class’s basic needs (for housing, food, education, healthcare and so on) are being met. In the late-capitalist city (whether Melbourne or Paris) these needs are decreasingly being met due to the financial stress imposed by decades of neoliberal austerity. Building on Lazzarato’s theory of ‘Indebted Man’ and Clover’s notion of the unending riot, we argue that recent waves of social movement mobilisations proffer an incipient process of politicisation beyond the traditional confines of militant activism. The Climate Justice Movement is used as an example. While it was unable to achieve its desired agreement at the UN COP21 negotiations in December 2015, it had small but significant consequences, and forms one of several divisions in the emerging counter-hegemonic bloc preparing for “what comes after neoliberalism”. In this sense it can be viewed as part of the global struggle to create cities that are liveable for everyone, and not merely the Economist’s chief constituency of wealthy expatriate businessmen.
Keywords: militarisation, liveable, Climate Justice Movement, divestment, neoliberalism.
Conference Presentations by Dr Alexander Waters