Or, more signals from the Society of the Spectacle.
I’ve been reading ‘Revolutionary Dreams: Utopian Vision and Experimental Life in the Russian Revolution’ by Richard Stites.
This lead me once again to Boris Kagarlitsky’s The Thinking Reed. I thought I’d lost the book. There are fond memories of the time and place in which it was first read. It was very pleasing to find it once again. A powerful re-connection with not just time and place, but another self, which is different, but somehow, the same.
For some unknown reason, I’ve been reading Guy Debord’s Comments on the Society of the Spectacle each morning over breakfast. It’s a surprisingly good combination. And much more useful than a ‘newspaper’.
And Bogdanov’s Red Star : The First Bolshevik Utopia. That requires a great deal of attention. This has only just been started but already it feels like a great discovery.
Industrial space next to the Dartford BridgeDartford BridgeShip, PurfleetThames estuary, Erith-ishUnidentified Fiscal Objects, Thames Possibly the A13Tesco distribution centre, east Londontrains, east LondonLoading bays, Stratford, east LondonWaste disposal, Westfield, Stratford east LondonPlace of toilView from Stratford looking westView from office window, east London, international finance centre, Carpenter’s estateCarpenter’s estateConsumption, John Lewis, Westfield, StratfordWestfield Shopping Centre, E20Westfield Shopping Centre, E20Westfield Shopping Centre, air conditioning and service infrastructureThe Railway Tavern Hotel, Stratford. The Stratford Dialectical and Radical Club met near here. In this pub? Peter Kropotkin spoke, as did William Morris. More research is needed. But the connection is made. In the vicinity were anarchists and militant Marxists. Stratford once had a rather good second hand book shop. In which a copy of Sebastiano Timpanero’s excellent book, ‘On Materialism’ was purchased. The book retains a revolutionary heat. There are no such bookshops in the area now. But Timpanaro’s ideas appear more pertinent than ever. General view over vague industrial landscape. Centres of capital accumulation are everywhere. Capital accumulation. In this case, by the Kuwaiti sovereign wealth fund. The flats were sold ‘off-plan’ (that is before they were actually built) several years ago. They are part of a new craze by the super-rich of ‘buy-to-leave’. They buy property and leave it to rise in ‘value’. There are rumours that such apartments are wrapped in cling film to ensure that not even microscope dust can interfere with price and cost. Surely such rumours should be squashed?Despite ‘the end of the working class’ the working class continues to be the essential determinant. None of those who ‘invest’ in property, actually ‘build’ property.
Who you gonna get to do the dirty work, when all the slaves are free?
Commodity Fetishism 
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