Category Archives: Politics

Total Record: The Blockchain Protocol Towards Post-Capitalism

In 2018, Guillaume Helleu and Anthony Masure published an article in Cairn entitled «Total Record. Les protocoles blockchain face au post-capitalisme1)Guillaume Helleu and Anthony Masure «Total Record: Les protocoles blockchain face au post-capitalisme,» in Multitudes 71 (2018/2), 70-79.  The article, cited in Mark Alizart‘s Cryptocommunisme: Soviets + Bitcoin (official translation in progress, as per Alizart, with an unofficial one being worked on by me), has yet to be translated.2)Mark Alizart, Cryptocommunisme: Soviets + Bitcoin (Paris: PUF, 2019). Given the interesting subject matter and my current forays into French, I’ve decided to translate the article myself. It ought to be noted, however, that this is an unofficial translation with not only no support or guidance from the authors, but no direct institutional affiliation. Given that, it is up to the reader to take what they want from the article and, as with everything else, take my words with a grain of salt.

While I stuck to the text as literally as possible in some places, I was forced to make small changes as translation is never 1:1. In places of ambiguity or where I deemed it necessary, I have included the appropriate French original in hard brackets. Additionally, everything else in hard brackets not within a quotation is extra commentary by me. Finally, the only ‘official’ translation of any part of this article that seems to exist is the abstract on Cairn‘s website. To allow the reader to get a feel for my translation vs. Cairn‘s vs. the original French, I have reproduced all three below before the full text of the paper. I urge any reader not well versed in French to note the differences between Cairn‘s translation and my own as that will help you get a feel for my style. And of course, as translation is a tricky and dangerous game to play, I welcome any and all feedback. Without further ado, here is the abstract.

Original:

Le protocole Bitcoin (2009) s’inscrit dans le prolongement des utopies crypto-anarchistes visant à développer une monnaie numérique sécurisée et distribuée sur le réseau Internet pour échapper à la centralisation du pouvoir par les banques et les gouvernements. Récupérées en grande partie par la finance spéculative, ces technologies à chaînes de blocs (blockchain) se sont progressivement développées et dépassent désormais largement le champ monétaire (applications distribuées, contrats intelligents, jetons de valeurs, etc.). Malgré la persistance de certains freins sociaux et techniques, les protocoles blockchain pourraient-ils prendre de vitesse la logique destructrice du capitalisme financier ?

Cairn‘s Translation:

Bitcoin (2009) is an extension of crypto-anarchist utopias aimed at developing a secure and distributed digital currency on the Internet network. It thus aims to escape the centralization of power by banks and governments. Caught up by speculative finance, blockchain technologies now extend beyond the financial field (decentralized applications, smart-contracts, tokens, etc.). Despite some remaining social and technical barriers, could blockchain protocols encourage the emergence of post-capitalist futures?

My Translation:

The Bitcoin Protocol (2009) marked an extension of the utopias envisioned by the Crypto-Anarchists with the development of a secure and distributed online digital currency designed to escape the centralization of power by banks and governments. Hijacked [récupérée] in large part from speculative finance, these technologies, ‘chains of blocks’ (the blockchain), were progressive developments that widely surpassed applications in the traditional monetary field (distributed applications, smart contracts, tokens of value, etc.). Despite the persistence of certain social and technical breaking points, can the blockchain protocol work with, and even speed up, the destructive logic of contemporary finance capitalism?

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References

References
1 Guillaume Helleu and Anthony Masure «Total Record: Les protocoles blockchain face au post-capitalisme,» in Multitudes 71 (2018/2), 70-79.
2 Mark Alizart, Cryptocommunisme: Soviets + Bitcoin (Paris: PUF, 2019).

Alexander Zinoviev in the 21st Century

I recently finished Tomislav Sunić’s1)Apparently the Southern Poverty Law Center classifies him as an extremist, a label that does not seem to fit well if one reads his critiques of biological determinism and racism. But since I have no dog in this fight, I’ll leave his “extremist-status” to be determined. Against Democracy and Equality: The European New Right and while my feelings on it are somewhat mixed (you can read my brief GoodReads review here), I overall think that, despite the misleading name which Alain de Benoist critiques,2)See Alain de Benoist, “The New Right: Forty Years After,” in Tomislav Sunić’s Against Democracy and Equality (London: Arktos, 2011), 18. it serves as a decent cursory introduction to the European New Right. This post, however, is not about Sunić’s book as a whole, but rather about the analysis he provides of Soviet dissident Alexander Zinoviev in the final chapter of the book.

More specifically, writing the book originally in 1988 and analyzing Communism and the Soviet Union before it collapsed, Sunić makes interesting use of Zinoviev’s cultural analysis of Communism that is even more interesting to read in a post-Soviet era. Indeed, based on Sunić’s commentary on Zinoviev, it seems as if the latter was sure that Communism was a sustainable system and would endure any economic hardship the arms race with the U.S. brought to the Soviet Union. It is my contention that if we take Zinoviev’s view of Communism at face value — that is to say, as explicated by Sunić –, then in a post-Soviet world, we are forced to conclude that the Soviet Union was not, in fact, a Communist society as per Zinoviev’s view.

Before I continue, I should make it clear that I have not read Zinoviev’s 2002 book The Russian Tragedy: Death of a Utopia (indeed, I’m not sure that it is available in English) wherein he reflects on the collapse of the Soviet Union. In The Russian Tragedy, Zinoviev could very well answer every point I raise in the following post and I wouldn’t know it, but nevertheless I shall comment on his views pre-collapse as they are likely not only distinct from his later views, but provide intrinsically interesting insights.

In the chapter “Homo Sovieticus: Communism as Egalitarian Entropy,” Sunić takes on the task of explicating Zinoviev’s cultural view of Communism as not merely a “historical zig-zag,” but rather as “an epoch.”3)Tomislav Sunić, Against Democracy and Equality: The European New Right (London: Arktos, 2011), 188. For Zinoviev, Communism, true Communism, is characterized by social entropy. For him, large scale stability and prosperity are not characteristics of Communism, instead, “social devolution” wherein individuals can “develop defensive mechanisms of political self-protection and indefinite biological survival” are characteristics of Communism.4)Sunić, Against Democracy and Equality: The European New Right, 189. Indeed, for Zinoviev, not only is power in a Communist society not centralized, the society itself is truly egalitarian with everything distributed horizontally. Given such a feature, under conditions of stress — namely economic hardship — there ought not be revolts as everyone is in an equally terrible situation as everyone else. Further more, conditions of economic stress ought not be seen as indices of the system buckling, but rather as instances of the system surviving. As Sunić points out:

In his usual paradoxical way, Zinoviev rejects the notion that Communism is threatened by economic mismanagement, popular dissatisfaction, or an inability to compete with liberalism. Quite the contrary: Communism is at its best when it faces economic difficulties, famines or long queues. It is a system designed for the simple life and economic frugality. Affluence in Communism only creates rising economic expectations and the danger of political upheavals.

Continuing on, Sunić pre-empts reader’s worries by saying that

[f]or contemporary readers, Zinoviev’s theses may often appear far-fetched. In an age of glasnost and the unravelling [sic] of Communist institutions all over Eastern Europe, one is tempter to believe that Communism irreversible. But if one reverse this assumption, glasnost may also be seen as a turning point for Communism, that is, as a sign of the system’s consolidation that now allows all sorts of experiments with liberal gadgetry.5)Ibid., 196.

Given this, it seems hard to claim that Zinoviev did not have a romantic view of Communism wherein words meant their opposite: hardship meant prosperity, mismanagement meant security, etc. If one takes Zinoviev’s theses at face value — namely that contradictions to Communism are not death spells –, it seems difficult to simultaneously maintain that the Soviet Union, a highly unegalitarian society that was brought down by economic mismanagement, popular dissatisfaction, and economic difficulties, was real Communism. Or perhaps Zinoviev is just wrong. Regardless, the collapse of the Soviet Union either disproves Zinoviev’s theses, or proves that the Soviet Union was not an example of real Communism. Both options seem unpalatable, but one must be true.

References

References
1 Apparently the Southern Poverty Law Center classifies him as an extremist, a label that does not seem to fit well if one reads his critiques of biological determinism and racism. But since I have no dog in this fight, I’ll leave his “extremist-status” to be determined.
2 See Alain de Benoist, “The New Right: Forty Years After,” in Tomislav Sunić’s Against Democracy and Equality (London: Arktos, 2011), 18.
3 Tomislav Sunić, Against Democracy and Equality: The European New Right (London: Arktos, 2011), 188.
4 Sunić, Against Democracy and Equality: The European New Right, 189.
5 Ibid., 196.

Reply to “The Moral Status of Political Violence”

In the wake of Charlottesville debacle, something I didn’t want to write about, my friend Paul penned an essay titled “The Moral Status of Political Violence” wherein he argues that political violence is moral insofar as it meets certain criteria. As I told Paul on Twitter, I was considering replying to him and although I really didn’t want to write about ethics, I decided to spend a night and write this. What follows is a reply to Paul’s argument that he abbreviates as follows:

I think political violence is moral if it meets most(or all) of the following conditions:
  1. It will not cause escalation
  2. All other nonviolent options have been exhausted
  3. The person using violence has little to no power within existing legal systems
  4. Nonviolent alternatives would be much less effective1)Paul, “The Moral Status of Political Violence,” on Paul Writes Things, published 8/13/17, accessed 8/13/17, <http://paulwritesthings.blogspot.com/2017/08/the-moral-status-of-political-violence.html>

Fair warning: The following post will be different than most of my others posts insofar as, not only is the content different (I tend not to write about ethics), but the style is reminiscent of my policy debate days. In that vein, I will be responding Paul’s offensive arguments one by one while raising my own objections. Specifically, I would like to raise questions regarding what Paul said, counter some of his points, and briefly provide a statement of my stance. The latter will not be very detailed as this is primarily a critique of Paul’s essay, but hopefully it will get some traction regardless.

“So in other words, yes I do believe beating the hell out of white supremacists in Charlottesville is ok. I don’t usually like antifa, but in this instance they are completely justified.”

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References

References
1 Paul, “The Moral Status of Political Violence,” on Paul Writes Things, published 8/13/17, accessed 8/13/17, <http://paulwritesthings.blogspot.com/2017/08/the-moral-status-of-political-violence.html>

Against Ideology

P U R E  I D E O L O G Y  is the name of the game and everyone wants in on it, and if you’re a Žižekian, you’re ahead of the curve. If you’re an internally consistent Žižekian, congratulations! According to some interpretations of Žižek — indeed, he espouses this in various places –, while we may think that we live in a post-ideological era, ideology is still constantly around us. We critique dominate hegemonies in the hopes of creating counter-narratives, but all that ends up happening is that we replicate the dominate ideologies of the past; capitalism is persistent. The following quotation from Žižek is especially salient:

Ideology is not simply imposed on ourselves, ideologies are spontaneous relationships to our social world, how we perceive it’s meaning, and so on and so on. We, in a way, enjoy our ideology.1)Slavoj Žižek, “The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology – What is Ideology?” Excerpt from The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology2012: 5:00-5:20

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The Gordian Knot of Climate Change and Terrorism

Following the recent terror attacks in Manchester and on the London Bridge, both the Left and the Right have been quick to give their own narratives of what happened and why. The Right, predictably, blames the attack on open-borders, multiculturalism, and Islamic extremism, whereas the Left is placing blame either upon “hate-mongers,” climate change, and interventionist foreign policies. As with all things, I think that the truth lies in the middle…but that is not the point of this post. The point of this post is to reply to dear, old Tomi Lahren and the following asinine tweet of hers:

Tomi’s tweet, along with countless others like it, are imbued with a fundamental misunderstanding of the Gordian Knot that is the relationship between climate change and terrorism. This post will be a modest attempt to explain what people mean when they say “climate change is linked to terrorism.”

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