Christian Swertz via nettime-l on Thu, 3 Apr 2025 17:31:41 +0200 (CEST)


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Re: <nettime> the destruction is the point.

I seem to have missed something. I could not find the proclamation of the dead end. I see the explicit reference to theories of the genre "capitalism", which seems to imply some implicit reference to theories of the genre "communism" or "anarchism". This obviously points in the direction of possible forms of action, as long as you accept revolution as a form of action.
The show that Trump and Musk are putting on is probably meant to be a distraction. And usually distraction shows in the public sphere are meant to distract from an ideology, in this case probably something like Christianity, Dataism and Capitalism. Christianity and Dataism have already been discussed in the last days on the list - thank's for that, by the way. And Capitalism is probably not irrelevant here as far as I see. I would thus just add "capitalism" to the bouquet of ideologies we are facing. So the usual bouquet, it seems. Leaving out capitalism might thus indeed lead to confusion, don't you think? 

Am 03.04.25 um 16:32 schrieb Ted Byfield via nettime-l:

The only function of this kind of all-encompassing dead-end proclamation is to be right. It explicitly dismisses all actual details and dynamics as “theatrics,” so it can’t even gesture in the direction of possible forms of action or theory. Worse, from the first words — “for those that may be confused” — its dismissal denies any alternative understanding with some grand platonic-proscenium metaphor. It doesn’t even make the best the enemy of the good, it just installs the worst as its sole organizing principle.

On Apr 3, 2025 at 4:43 AM -0400, Dmytri Kleiner via nettime-l <nettime-l@lists.nettime.org>, wrote:


For those that may be confused, to reinflate the rate of profit for billionaires you need to destroy capital, attack labour, and stifle competition.

Trump's tariff tantrum, Musk's mayhem, the resulting spectacular stock swoon, make capital and labour cheaper to acquire and clears space for new concentrations of profit.

This orchestrated chaos isn't about bolstering the economy for non billionaries. Higher prices, job insecurity, and economic instability are needed to confront profitability crises, especially as the West re-orientates towards Cold War II, the pacific pivot.

Trump and Musk may deliver the spectacle with extra chaos and cruelty, but the underlying logic is bipartisan and systemic and done with strong consensus of the bourgeois elite, who imagine this as Schumpeterian "Creative Destruction."

When profitability falters, capitalism demands sacrifice: capital must be devalued, labor disciplined, and markets cleared of excess players. This isn’t policy error or personal failing, it’s how the system sustains itself.

Ignore the theatrics, the destruction is the point.
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Liebe Grüße,

Christian Swertz
http://www.swertz.at

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