Right at the start I would like to pose the issue of two equations in a way – this sounds like mathematics (after all, we ought to deal with work, working people here) – yet this is eventually what takes centre stage: the fulfilling of equations.
The first consists of the subject and the title of this exhibition:
Autonomy and self determination minus the answer to the question:
What do you do for a living? =
No matter what is the answer, it always implies a contradiction, a restriction or even the removal of the two first-mentioned factors (autonomy and self determination). Which results, cynical as it may be to say this, in a zero sum equation if we follow the laws of logic.
Deregulation and flexibilization plus the answer to the question: How do you make your profits? =
Again, no matter what is the answer, in the world of capitalist globalization it is always a consequence of the two first-mentioned factors (deregulation and flexibilization); hence for the result on the other side of the equation the sky’s the limit.
Furthermore: As a consequence of the second equation’s validity the first one applies too. The contradiction in the first-mentioned relation arises from the causality of the second one.
What precisely does this mean? How can this be translated?
For those whose survival depends on their income from work autonomy
can be defined as “independence of social time from the temporality of
capitalism”. (Franco Berardi) The lesser of this time is available, the
stronger becomes dependence, dependence from those who do not make a living
but profits by means of deregulation and flexibilization.
Brief semantic analysis: Deregulation operates under the logo of freedom;
hence it suggests that it’s capable of fulfilling the claim for autonomy,
whereas flexibilization is sold as ‘everybody can work whenever
he or she wants’. Yet fact is that everybody is available 24/7 –
geographically and individually, the free circulation of work goes hand in hand
with the free circulation of capital; in this respect the factor work is equalled
to the factor capital and thus depersonalized. Once social networks were cut
by factory work, now it’s the claim for flexibility. At the same time
class consciousness has disintegrated to a great extent. One consequence is
pseudo-levelling, another one is that all resistance potential is suffocated.
More about this later.
Now some figures on the differentiation between living and profits:
While in 1980 the salaries of US top managers averaged 42 times a worker’s
monthly income they earned, believe it or not, 531 times a worker’s salary
in 2000. We all know the figures these differences refer to – yet we ought
to get to the bottom of things and ask ourselves which mechanisms lay the foundations
for them. As a result of deregulation and flexibilization, ergo precarisation,
working people are being left with less and less attention potential because
they are involved in so many different processes in order to able to survive
financially. Nevertheless, quite often this is still no safe remedy –
true to the motto ‘Work does not protect you from poverty’. Moreover,
one’s physical survival is firmly linked to one’s financial survival:
just think of health insurance, retirement provisions etc. What was formerly
provided by public funds has now developed into a highly profitable market due
to a policy that not only submits to economical power – keywords: taxes,
cuts in social services etc – but also takes over its methods in an opportunistic
and assertive (!) manner in order to make sure it’s still alive –
and thus permanently counteracts its own continued existence! So what was formerly
provided by public funds is now a big market that does not aim for a living
but for profits …
Consequently, the downright ‘occupation of life’ (Berardi) makes
one aspect apparent which even fosters this development from multiple directions:
levelling by means of a (seemingly) cross-class cornucopia of consumer products
and services, the subsequent disappearance of class as a social phenomenon –
at least by definition. Hence blurring of differences, hence the illusion of
satisfaction, hence the encouragement to maintain the status quo, hence the
avoidance of a revolution – this is how control works. Getting people
to commit to established things. Scenarios of danger, Safety conditioning. The
‘wish’ for relevant ‘measures’ is immediately met –
this is how control, how power works.
Current news: According to the Austrian Federal Ministry of the Interior police have made 3,863 requests for information in accordance with the SPG within the first four months since commencement of the new Austrian Sicherheitspolizeigesetz (SPG) [Law on the Security Police]. This tracking and further processing of IP addresses and cell phone locations is carried out without warrant and the affected people – no matter if they are guilty or innocent – needn’t even be informed about this!
Class becomes mass – and in order to satisfy the need for individuality
this mass may ransack the rummage table of the consumer market. “I decide
what I consume”, the people are made to believe (self determination!)
– And they are more than willing to believe this. On the one hand this
is how the profits are kick-started with the money they earn for their
living (even this investment flows back 1:1), on the other, the competition
from working life is thus transferred into all other spheres too. Everybody
wants to have what the others have, what we “all” have. To meet
expectations as the prime principle – for this we invest our capital and
work (hence time!) – We live for the system! (Don’t we know this
from somewhere? This is the enemy, isn’t it? Or, in Guy Debord‘s
words: “the degradation of being into having”.
In their function of self-proclaimed individuals human beings turn into “social
combat units” (Berthold Vogel, taz) and as such they form a mass
that can easily be controlled. Sihem Bensedrine, who is currently Writer in
Exile in Graz, writes: “A dictator feeds on two things: on fear, people’s
fear, and on the competition between his victims.” The dictatorship of
the market. The market that eludes all control – actually, the market
alone is the only entity that has to be really free!
As a matter of fact, the art and culture market is no exception. All too easily
and willingly it makes use of the lack of attention. What follows is the spectacle
– and a look at Debord reveals the following:” The spectacle subjugates
living men to itself to the extent that the economy has totally subjugated them.
It is no more than the economy developing for itself.” (G.D., The
Society of the Spectacle, chapter 1/16)
What’s left? Not to accept prefab images. To question things time and
again and on and on. By hook or by crook. And to draw the conclusions from one’s
reflections. To have the guts not to fulfill the equation.
Evelyn Schalk