Weekend Economists: What Goes Up....June 1-3, 2012

[bread_and_roses]

63. Wondering here - has Consumerism destoyed the possibility of Collectivism?

Am reading contemporary commentaries on the social impacts on inter-personal behavior of the Collectives. These are not "objective," disinterested accounts - but interesting nonetheless:

http://anarchism.pageabode.com/afaq/secI8.html

"Industry is in the hands of the workers and all the production centres conspicuously fly the red and black flags as well as inscriptions announcing that they have really become collectives. The revolution seems to be universal. Changes are also evident in social relations. The former barriers which used to separate men and woman arbitrarily have been destroyed. In the cafes and other public places there is a mingling of the sexes which would have been completely unimaginable before. The revolution has introduced a fraternal character to social relations which has deepened with practice and show clearly that the old world is dead." [Durruti: The People Armed, p. 243]

and

"The atmosphere then, the feelings were very special. It was beautiful. A feeling of -- how shall I say it -- of power, not in the sense of domination, but in the sense of things being under our control, of under anyone's. Of possibility. We had everything. We had Barcelona: It was ours. You'd walk out in the streets, and they were ours -- here, CNT; there, comite this or that. It was totally different. Full of possibility. A feeling that we could, together, really do something. That we could make things different." [quoted by Martha A. Ackelsberg and Myrna Margulies Breithart, "Terrains of Protest: Striking City Women", pp. 151-176, Our Generation, vol. 19, No. 1, pp. 164-5]

(emphasis in original)

I have to wonder - could generations who've grown up so detached from the production of real goods - from food, shoes, and spontaneous song - generations who've been taught that doing is shopping - can we even experience joy anymore from reality?