the revolution
is a free-enterprise zone (the politics of capitalism)
"These
new forms of advertising and consumption do not deny politics;
they simply reappropriate it." Henry Giroux
But the propaganda insists
that Unamerican is more than a company -- it's a glorious political
vision, a platform of revolutionary awareness, uniting people
with "half a brain." Unamerican wants you to take its
political agenda seriously, so I did. I wasn't impressed.
Unamerican announced in the
winter of 98-99 a "poverty sucks" crusade, waged in
the name of the homeless. For those looking for a complex analysis
of the increasing economic disparity in San Francisco, look elsewhere.
Kumar is "PROUD that our city has made such progress,"
what with the boom in information tech industries in nearby Silicon
Valley. Kumar is, however, "sad to report that very little
of the progress has trickled down to the lower classes."
(All "poverty sucks" quotes taken from the accompanying
manifesto penned by Kumar. It might or might not still be at
the Unamerican website.)
But Unamerican wants to help.
Plotting to hand out 6,500 "poverty sucks" stickers
to homeless in the City, Unamerican proposes to magnanimously
give them a voice with which to denounce their condition. Of
course, Kumar "quickly realized" that Unamerican shouldn't
reap a profit reason one stated being "the logistics
of collecting money from the homeless are simply beyond me."
Calling it charity, Kumar suggests that the homeless sell Unamerican's
product in order to earn a little Christmas cash.
Still, charity is not without
its perks. Free advertising and advantageous product placement,
for instance; all relevant catalog information is listed beneath
the slogan "poverty sucks." (Not only can you help
out your neighborhood homeless with your generous purchase, but
discover that consumption can free you, too!) And that
nasty ulterior motive lurks -- in the Unamerican press release
Kumar goes so far as to brag that "even the HOMELESS sell
our stickers." Not just completely tacky, it also trivializes
the conditions of poverty Unamerican claims to collectively lose
sleep over, which might explain the sticker "no change sorry."
What escapes entirely from
the Unamerican analysis is the detrimental cost of "progress"
upon the City. It's no accident that economic growth and an army
of Valley employees -flush with cash and stock options--
heralds nothing but bad news for poor and working-class populations.
Over the past 20 years, the systematic elimination of affordable
housing and a skyrocketing cost-of-living in the City have increased
the levels of poor and homelessness. Tim Redmond in the San
Francisco Bay Guardian notes that "[in] the 1970s, tens
of thousands of cheap single-room-occupancy hotel rooms disappeared
in the name of urban renewal.In the 1980s and 1990s, tens of
thousands of cheap family apartments disappeared to make room
for yuppie condos and newly rich Silicon Implants." (Psst,
Unamerican, it's called gentrification.) Mayor Willie Brown suggests
that the poor just move if they can't afford the City, and meanwhile
homeless shelters are torn down so parking lots for baseball
stadiums can go up.
And yet homelessness just happens
in the Unamerican universe, without cause or context, even while
Kumar blithely praises the economic wealth that simultaneously
feeds that urban poverty. He even revives the slippery pseudo-economic
hypothesis that increased wealth at the top will trickle down
to the lower classes , reaching way down into the "reaganomics"
bag of tricks to avoid questions of class complicity and structural
inequalities.
The lack of analysis is problematic
in light of the fact that the company claims to have an anticapitalist
agenda, but typical. A crucial plank in the Unamerican anarchist
platform is in the advocacy of free enterprise, a form of capitalism
that supposedly will destroy capitalism. And no, it doesn't make
much sense, but apparently Unamerican is the model for just such
a revolution.
As a kind of libertarianism
or anarcho-capitalism, Kumar contends that free enterprise will
"compete the capitalists into the ground." (Following
quotes taken from the "fuck work" manifesto.) His reasoning
is vague at best, shot through with mile-wide holes at worst.
Narrowly defining free enterprise as "a philosophy that
holds that you or I or any combination of people can gather up
some resources and start a new business," Kumar writes that
"believing in FREEDOM includes believing in this inalienable
right."
Furthermore, he believes this
abstract (and bourgeois) "freedom" to engage in free
enterprise is both empowering and "the wave of the future,"
"the surest way of re-booting America to re-empower its
citizens to meet the challenges of the networked world."
Nevermind how much that reads like ad copy for a telecommunications
multinational -- which it does. It also reflects the mythic hyper-individualism
that characterizes both American capitlaism and U.S. national
identity. Kumar's fervent belief in free enterprise sounds an
awful lot like the patriotic rhetoric of both.
But Unamerican doesn't want
you to realize that.
Free enterprise, of course, is a lot more than a couple of friends
getting together and starting a little business. And never mind
for now the obvious class-specific question of where these pals
might get their resources or how they might have access to this
capital.
Free enterprise is also the
mating call of transnational corporations, Republicans, and CEOs;
economic theory defines free enterprise as the "pure"
application of capitalist activity without state regulation or
restriction. Even "common sense" ideology interprets
free enterprise as the "freedom" to make a buck when
and where you can. It's the creature that spawned merger-monopolies
and Free Trade Zones, those neocolonial encounters complete with
paramilitaries patrolling the fenced enclosures of the factories.
The "free" in free enterprise is relative to your level
of privilege. I'm not arguing that Unamerican consciously endorses,
say, the exploitation of Mexican factory (maquiladora) workers;
the point is, for an operation that makes some high-falutin'
claims to a radical whatever, they haven't done a whole lot of
homework before putting their product and politics- on the
market.
Bad homework is the key phrase.
What else do you call it when Unamerican argues that stickers
are an ideal medium of democracy because you "can choose
where to put 'em"? (Needless to say, practical democracy
is more complicated than that.) Capitalism is a complex formation
with not only economic but political and ideological implications.
It is a social logic that not only overdetermines our institutions
but our human relations, even the language we use. The Unamerican
analysis of capitalism is a two-dimensional caricature of faceless
corporations imposing boredom and uniformity, a monolithic bogeyman.
It makes for a safe, convenient Enemy, exemplified by a few Big
Bad Guys from which Unamerican can distance themselves with a
sigh of relief.
But let's play along and follow
the Unamerican argument about capitalism. The "fuck work"
manifesto suggests that because profit not innovation--
drives most businesses, they become willing to trade on "mediocre
ideas" and hierarchical bureaucracy in order to eliminate
competition. After all, as Kumar explains, "The ultimate
goal of capitalism is monopoly, which can only be achieved by
squashing all competition." But wait, his idea of
"fighting back" consists of starting more private businesses
and competing "the capitalists into the ground."
This is accomplished with the
successful marketing of "new ideas" that will, uh,
squash all competition with a net result of more profit,
more customers, and more consumption. How that
differentiates the free enterprise "radicals" from
the "evil" capitalists is far, far beyond me. But apparently,
this is part of Kumar's mission to redefine the negative meanings
of "free enterprise" he says, the same way "queer"
was reclaimed by queer activists to signal a radical politics.
Of course, "queer" was a derogatory term, redefined
in the midst of the AIDS crisis to combat institutional homophobias
and refuse the shame. I have a hard time feeling sorry for those
wealthy free-trade industrialists, go figure.
But according to Kumar, all
this entrepreneurial activity will destroy capitalism, re-vitalize
the nation and yet nurture a revolution. Talk about perennial
American mythologies! How individual and private business ventures
will actually address the structural inequalities engendered
by capitalism -in cahoots with regulatory logics of gender,
race, heteronormativity, and even nationalism-- is left unsaid.
Meanwhile the paradox -how exactly does a "bad"
capitalism recuperate itself with a big white hat or better,
mohawk-- slips by, unseen. After all, entrepreneurial activity
is the foundation of capitalist expansion, and it's a premise
of market capitalism that everything and anything (apparently
also revolution) can be exchanged for a price -- apparently also
revolution.
What's so transgressive about
that? Unamerican offers an analysis that hardly begins
to scratch the surface of economic disparity. It also assumes
a certain degree of material privilege "fuck work"
(especially in the form of wage labor) is hardly a viable option
for most, and its tedium not the worst part. Work is not just
alienating, it is often back-breaking, insecure, and poorly paid.
But "fuck work and start your own business" is hardly
a revolutionary answer to the more oppressive aspects of work.
(Do you really think the sixty year-old Filipino janitor at the
mall can quit and set up up his own Internet enterprise?) And
what about solidarity? Call me old-fashioned, but rather than
ditching out I'd rather see people organize for better work conditions,
wages, and a social safety net.
In fact, the Unamerican model
of social change smacks of "compassionate conservatism,"
favorite philosophy of the junior Bush, in which free enterprise
is once again poised to save the day, and America. Unamerican's
"poverty sucks" campaign hardly strays from this conservative
social politic, avoiding causal structural analysis -especially
if you don't count The Man as adequate explanation. Instead,
both Unamerican and so-called "compassionate conservatives"
substitute "intentional individual goodwill for the nation-state's
commitment to fostering democracy." (Berlant) It's a fantasy
of civic duty that is principally available to "good"
people with good money, whether it's investing in poor communities
(with the promise of a return on that investment) or starting
up those businesses that will eventually topple capitalism (with
those higher profit margins).
Think about it. The assumed
audience to whom Unamerican addresses its suggestions is class-specific,
one with the resources and the capital to start businesses (especially
ones that can somehow out-compete existing corporations!) and
re-write company policies. When asked exactly what he expects
"extreme youth" to do in order to "fuck work"
and start their revolutionary small businesses, Kumar replies,
"save [money]....if you're smarter and can take a risk,
why not quit and let those [other] people have those jobs?"
(Apparently, "smarter" is the same as "richer.")
For those whose monthly expenses (including rent, bills, loans,
mortgages, groceries) prevent such entrepreneurial measures,
you're left with the advice to "be creative." What
Unamerican might have to say about disastrous rates of unemployment
and metropolitan and rural poverty is probably simply that it
"sucks." With a vague, piecemeal response of individual
entrepreneurship, Unamerican volunteers no analysis of these
structural inequalities, and certainly offfers no structural
or collective solutions.
So it's not surprising that
company ad copy also fails to address those powerful logics of
social regulation like racisms, gender or heteronormativity.
(Unless "racism is typical" or "punk rock girl"
really breaks down your walls.) In fact, Kumar thinks race is
boring. In an interview with Stir,
an on-line Asian American magazine , Kumar says, "I mean,
the more you talk about race, the less far you get with actual
substantial change in people's lives. I am trying to craft the
revolution for all people."
Of course, "all people"
are not all equal, and any abstract claim to the contrary is
a lie. Race continues to be a defining (and oppressive) condition
of disenfranchisement and alienation in many people's lives.
I'd be forced to wonder about racially-motivated hate crimes,
urban underdevelopment, police brutality, anti-immigrant legislation,
and all those nasty stereotypes about welfare queens, wetbacks,
Chink spies, and dead Indians. How do we talk about these, and
how do we agitate for social change, without talking about race?
The sweeping dismissal of so
many political struggles stunning, but hardly a surprise. Kumar's
inability to comprehend "race" as a system of domination
is typical of the liberal vagueness of company politics. (That
is, Unamerican will sell you stickers that read, "destroy
the racist infrastructure," even though "race"
is boring.) I mean, if he can't recognize the role of the State
or Silicon Valley when speaking of homelessness and poverty in
the City, why should he catch on when the dynamics are subtler?
At the same time, Unamerican
feeds a fashionably apolitical irony that avoids complicity with
or attachment to- any of the politics expressed (if any
are). "Whitey will pay" surfaces on office computer
monitors and across the chests of hipster white boys because
it's decidedly not threatening, commercially retailed
alongside "dope smoking moron." Without social context
or consequence, a volatile history of severe oppression is (again)
disappeared and the desire for justice reduced to (bad) kitsch.
The "inalienable right"
to free enterprise -Unamerican's central political platform--
ducks the question of power and hegemony, reproducing the "ideology
of unimpaired entrepreneurial activity that was sanctified as
free-market patriotism during and after the Reagan regime."
(Berlant) Never mind the bourgeois business bravado -- once we
take in account relations of class, "race" and nation,
the abstract promise of free enterprise and (Un)American Dreams
falls flat.
Next page,
please. Managing unity and the soft
(not) sell.
writing
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