All of them means all of them means…

K. Syed
K. Syed
Nov 1 · 4 min read

Following the current uprisings around the world, there are some common tropes that are impossible to ignore. In response to brutal neoliberalism and state repression, many protest movements have chosen to indict the entire political class. In Chile, the slogan “It’s not about 30 pesos, it’s about 30 years” clearly rejects the succession of center-left and right wing governments in the post-dictatorship era. In Lebanon, the crowds north and south chant “all of them means all of them”, and just as in Iraq and Haiti, politicians are labeled thieves. Politicians left and right have been implementing austerity, and there is a popular understanding that the reason why politicians can do this is because they don’t represent those who are impacted by austerity. The poor suffer from austerity while public funds are so openly and blatantly diverted to fill the coffers of government officials and the well connected — yet the political parties contend that they represent the masses. Structurally, this cannot be true under a capitalist system, as the power of the global and national capitalist classes shapes the limits and discourse of politics. But here, also, there is an opportunity to talk about the notion of representational democracy and its inherent limitations.

Indeed, at the heart of any serious class analysis is a recognition of how class subverts democracy. The allocation of resources always affects everyone, yet only a few are in a position to make decisions about it. The capitalist class, in this sense, are gatekeepers to resources and the planners of the future upon whom we all are made to depend on. Since we must depend on its decisions vis a vis the allocation of resources, we are made to accommodate its interest in making profits. Our survival becomes tied to our exploitation. This contradiction is unsustainable, and so the bourgeois state exists in order to mediate the conflict between classes.

This state claims to be democratic in many cases (and always claims to be an expression of popular will), yet its representatives only come from the higher echelons of society, and only act within the narrow sphere of possibilities that don’t sharply contradict the interests of the capitalists. But there is also another critique here that needs to be drawn out: that even in the most credible representative system where all people are represented, democracy is still limited by state-stratification and generalization. The division between rule-maker and rule-taker produces its own stratifying dynamic, where rule-makers are able to prioritize their own well being as a political class over the desires of the masses they ostensibly represent. The social theorist Cornelius Castoriadis had referred to this sort of social organization as “heteronomous” as opposed to “autonomous” — that is, rules are not produced by the majority of society itself, but imposed upon by a separate class. Representation itself is a form of mediation, and so even in the impossible situation in which the interests of representatives and the represented are totally aligned, democracy is limited by generalization: as you add in more layers of representation, you end up further into abstraction and generalization, making it structurally difficult to respond to the specific, fluid and heterogeneous desires of the people (which is why some of the proposals for a non-political “technocratic” administration will likely end up in failure). People become part of a universal plan, or nodes in a greater trajectory designed by politicians far away — while their irreducible humanity is marginalized as such plans are implemented for “the greater good”. People are reified; the center is productive while everyone else is raw material. You add in the fact that the capitalist class maintains its hold on resources, as well as the influence of imperial and regional powers, and one can easily see how endemic corruption and dehumanization is inevitable. A capitalist democracy is one in which thieves rule, and a representative democracy is hardly a democracy at all. If they represented you, they wouldn’t be calling in security forces to shoot you “for the greater good”.

Although there is wholesale rejection of the political class around the world, on the surface the solutions that have been proposed have not amounted to much more than new elections. However, there are embryonic forms of new sorts of democracy where many decisions are being made in many of the uprisings around the world — like neighborhood assemblies in Chile (which my Chilean comrades have stressed though they have not been reported on at all by the media) that could become the basis for the constituent assemblies now being demanded. Resistance to the state, outside of the state, always generates its own institutions and, dare I say, forms of governance, just as community is itself built through struggle. Nobody knows as yet how these struggles will play out, but the development of these forms is crucial, as they are a development of an alternative.

If “all of them means all of them,’’ then what follows is that the solution must be decentralized direct democracy and direct action, with full power and control over resources in the hands of the people. The demand for direct democracy is really a demand for power to the poor masses — and thus the only real and final solution to austerity and corruption. Whereas bourgeois politicians restrict their activity to within the interests of capital, direct democracy would mean that there would be nothing to stop the poor from deciding to expropriate the wealth of the rich and thus take destiny into their own hands. Of course, such a pursuit would take more than just a vote; the uprisings occurring across the globe, however, have already shown a taste of the power that the people hold — the power to shut down cities and streets, docks and mines. The international working class is breaking out of its shell, and it’s more advanced sections are showing us the way.

Written by

K. Syed

Member of First of May Anarchist Alliance and Solidarity & Defense. Co-producer of Rustbelt Abolition Radio.

Welcome to a place where words matter. On Medium, smart voices and original ideas take center stage - with no ads in sight. Watch
Follow all the topics you care about, and we’ll deliver the best stories for you to your homepage and inbox. Explore
Get unlimited access to the best stories on Medium — and support writers while you’re at it. Just $5/month. Upgrade