by The newly added “Alter-Worlds” concep
t of After Capitalism comes from Shaw and Waterstone’s manifesto “Wageless Life.” They suggest there is not a single or all-encompassing approach but rather lots of them. And there is a lot that can be learned from movements springing up outside or on the margins of the system.
Alter-Worlds are described as “de-commodified and autonomous territories: entangled spaces of being, of unique stories of dignified coexistence between humans and non-humans.” Their call is for a shift from work oriented by capitalist laboring at increasingly meaningless jobs to a vision of work directed at resourcing Alter-Worlds. The kinds of things they are talking about: temporary and permanent autonomous zones, worker’s councils, community gardens, free schools, pirate radio stations, squats, collectives, communes, LETs, and other parallel institutions. These spaces offer refuge and prefiguring new post-capitalist politics. A prominent example they refer to is the Zapatista movement in Mexico.
It’s a very personal and local vision. It’s a question of knowing how to fight, to pick locks, to set broken bones and treat sickness; how to build a pirate radio transmitter; how to set up street kitchens; how to aim straight; how to gather together scattered knowledge and set up wartime agronomics; understand plankton biology; soil composition; study the ways plants interact; get to know possible uses for and connections with our immediate environment as well as the limits we can’t go beyond without exhausting it.”
In some ways, this makes it refreshing as it suggests very tangible ways that one can start working toward this new future vision now. That said, it may seem a tad romantic to some. But I like the notion of there being multiple possibilities that can emerge in a bottom-up fashion and I think it makes a useful to addition to our collection — Andy Hines
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